Michael McCarty in my prison workshops, they say. “Storytelling, you're going to show us how to tell the Three Little Pigs?” I say, “Every living person has at least one story they need to tell. And (telling) that story will help them in their relationship with the people around them, and the world, and more importantly, with themselves.

BIO

Michael McCarty: Mother always told me stories. I began telling stories formally when I was in high school in Chicago (St. Ignatius) in the 60’s, stories of Africa and the struggles of African-Americans for freedom. In 1992 I met Joel ben Izzy from Berkeley, CA who was introduced to me as a professional storyteller. “You mean to tell me that people pay you to tell stories!?” I asked. I picked his brain and vowed that I was going to become a professional teller too, and my motto would be “Have mouth. Will run it.” A week or so later I asked myself what would I do as a profession if I was independently wealthy. Tell stories, was my answer.

So I went to my local library and began collecting folk tales from different countries and reading books about storytelling. One day the Young Adult Librarian asked me why I was getting so many books of folk tales and asked if I was writing a paper. When I told him that I was a storyteller he said that he had a group of teenagers that wanted to learn storytelling. Could I give them a workshop? I said sure. The workshop was a success. Thus began my career. And I’ve been running my mouth around the country and around the world ever since.

In 1996 I initiated the GRIOT Workshop in Leimert Park in Los Angeles. This is a place where anyone can come and get assistance in developing their storytelling skills. From 2004 until 2008 I was the Pacific Region Representative for the National Storytelling Network (NSN) Board of Directories.

My life has been one heaven of a story: Student activist, Black Panther, US Army martial arts instructor, acupuncturist, world traveler, spiritual seeker, construction worker, storyteller, husband, father, crazy friend. Never a dull moment! I LOVE my life;-)

Notable Mentions

High John the Conqueror: John the Conqueror, also known as High John de Conqueror, John, Jack, and many other folk variants, is a folk hero from African-American folklore. He is associated with the roots of Ipomoea purga, the John the Conqueror root or John the Conqueroo, to which magical powers are ascribed in African-American folklore, especially among the Hoodoo tradition of folk magic.[

Have mouth will run it: Michael D. McCarty’s web site

Black Panther Party: Founded in 1966 in Oakland, California the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was the era’s most influential militant black power organization.  Its members confronted politicians challenged the police and protected black citizens from brutality. The party’s community service programs - called “survival programs” - provided food clothing and transportation. Rather than integrating American society members wanted to change it fundamentally. For them black power was a global revolution.

Fred Hampton: Fredrick "Chairman Fred" Allen Hampton Sr. (August 30, 1948 – December 4, 1969) was an American activist. He came to prominence in his late teens and very early 20s in Chicago as deputy chairman of the national Black Panther Party and chair of the Illinois chapter. 

Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education: The Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education (CAJE), founded as the Coalition for Alternatives in Jewish Education, was a non-profit organization based in New York City. Its activities included an annual conference that drew ~2000 Jewish educators,[1][2] advocacy for Jewish educators, various education-related publications, and more. Its founding was the brainchild of Jerry Benjamin and Cherie Koller-Fox.[3]

Joel Ben Izzy: It was back in 1983 that I graduated from Stanford with a self-designed degree in English, Creative Writing and Storytelling, and set off to travel the world, gathering and telling stories. Since then I have told stories and taught storytelling in some 36 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Peninnah Schram: In 1970 Peninnah Schram started recording books for the blind at the Jewish Braille Institute. That experience inspired her to begin to teach Jewish storytelling as a separate subject, and in 1974 she taught her first course on Jewish storytelling. The year 1974 heralded several other groundbreaking projects: She became “storyteller-in-residence” at The Jewish Museum, and she recorded three record albums and broadcast two storytelling series on radio. Some of this recorded material is now in the National Jewish Archive of Broadcasting.  

Karen Golden: Karen is currently a teaching artist with the Los Angeles County Arts Commission (LAartsed.org) and the founding director of Creative Learning Place (creativelearningplace.com), an academic and arts center for home-schooled children. She is also an international touring artist with the Buenos Aires based company DreamOn Productions and she has brought her storytelling to 1000's of students in international schools in China, S. Korea, Hong Kong, and Peru. In 2020 she will be telling stories in Argentina and Columbia. 

Kathleen Zundel: ONCE UPON A TIME...there was a storyteller named Kathleen Zundell whotraveled far and wide telling stories of fearless kids, feisty women, family foibles, and four-footed creatures. Her repertoire celebrated many cultures,stories with American Sign Language, and tales of the earth. 

Pasadena storytellers (Community Storytellers): Community Storytellers is a storyswap group that was formed in 1981 by two special women named Peggy Prentice and Kathleen Zundell. Peggy and Kathleen are no longer with us but they left a wonderful format for bringing people together.

Leslie Perry : It was an article of faith with this great “Story Man,” the title of his first book. Note he didn’t just refer to himself as a “storyteller,” but as a “story man;” it defined his entire being—not just the act of telling, but the act of being itself. It was who he was, not just what he did. More than any one I know, he became the story when he told it—he was just the vessel for the tale. (from Folkworks, in Memoriam)

PF Sloan: P. F. Sloan, was an American singer and songwriter. During the mid-1960s, he wrote, performed, and produced many Billboard Top 20 hits for artists such as Barry McGuire, the Searchers, Jan and Dean, Herman's Hermits, Johnny Rivers, the Grass Roots, the Turtles, and the Mamas and the Papas.[2]

Arts in Corrections: Administered by the California Arts Council in partnership with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, California's Arts in Corrections program is internationally recognized for its high-impact, innovative approach to addressing the state's critical public safety needs and rehabilitative priorities through the arts. 

LA Dream Shapers: Our mission is to connect quality performing artists with children’s and family shows to elementary schools, libraries, preschools, cities, community organizations and families.  Dream Shapers has provided over 150,000 professional and highly acclaimed performing arts programs over the past 35 years .  

NFL Live: A popular football focused sports talk show on ESPN

The Monkey, and the Crocodile: A Jtaka tale with the moral that a wise enemy is better than a foolish friend.

Jataka tale: The Jātaka (meaning "Birth Story," "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to the Indian subcontinent which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. Jataka stories were depicted on the railings and torans of the stupas. [1][2] According to Peter Skilling, this genre is "one of the oldest classes of Buddhist literature."[3] Some of these texts are also considered great works of literature in their own right.[4]

The Story Factor by Annette Simmons: Over one hundred stories drawn from the front lines of business and government, as well as myths, fables, and parables from around the world, illustrate how story can be used to persuade, motivate, and inspire in ways that cold facts, bullet points, and directives can’t. These stories, combined with practical storytelling techniques show anyone how to become a more effective communicator. From “who I am” to “I-know-what-you’re thinking,” Simmons identifies the six stories you need to know how to tell and demonstrates how they can be applied.

Michael McCarty

[00:00:08] Michael McCarty: Am I coming through clearly?

[00:00:18] MM: This is a African American folktale about High John the Conqueror. They used to say of High John, he wouldn't pick cotton, he wouldn't bale hay. He wouldn't take a beating, but he wouldn't run away. You see, John was a trickster, and he was usually tricking old Masa.

Now, back in the days of slavery, these were stories that were only told amongst the slaves themselves, and when you hear this particular story, you'll understand why. It was the day before Christmas, and every year at Christmas, John had the task to prepare the Christmas turkey for old Massa and his family.

“Yes sir, Massa.”

“You gonna fix that turkey?”

“Oh yeah, master, I'm gonna fix that turkey.”

“Well, John, we're doing something different this year. Whatever you do to that turkey, we gonna do to you.”

John thought, “Uh oh, if I pluck that turkey's feathers, they'll skin me alive. And if I chop off that turkey's head, ultimate haircut.

But John was quick of wit, came up with a plan. So that day, Christmas morning. Old Master and his family they all sitting on the porch. They all in on this joke on John. Here comes John down the road with that turkey, feathers, and head intact.

Master says, “John.”

“Yes, Massa.”

“Remember what I told you? “

“Yes, Massa.”

“Let me see if I got this here right. Whatever I do to this here turkey, y'all, all y'all gonna do to me.”

“That's right, John.”

“What you gonna do with Master? Let me show you.”

John picked that turkey up. Set it on the porch. Grabbed that turkey's tail feathers, raised them tail feathers up and kissed it smack dab in the butt.

Then he turned to old Massa, flipped up his coattails, cause he got dressed up for this.

He said, “Y'all take your time now. I ain't going nowhere.”

And that's the end of that. Ha ha ha ha ha. That story was told to me by a friend whose past, Akoni, the story man, and it's one of my favorite stories to tell.

Chapter One. You do what?

[00:03:23] BC: You know, it's so nice now that they've, that they've given prisons to artists to run

BC: So, Michael. Let's start. There are people in your universe that do not know exactly what you do. And so, when you sit down across the table from a relative or a new friend and they say, “Well, you know, Michael, what's your gig.” How do you describe your work in the world?

And teaching people how to find, develop, and to tell their own stories. That's my gig. Helping them to see that they have stories and that their stories matter, and their stories are important, and they need to develop and tell those stories.

[00:05:33] MM: This is a common thing I get, especially in my prison workshops, especially when I first started in 2014. “Storytelling, you're going to show us how to tell the three little pigs.” But what I tell them, and I show them, I say, “Everybody, every living person has at least one story they need to tell. And they need to tell it not only because maybe somebody needs to hear it, but they need to get that story out of them. And that story will help them in their relationship with the people around them, and the world, and more importantly, with themselves.

So, especially the work I do in the prisons. A lot of, guys, they, they, they don't think that their stories matter. They don't think their stories have meaning. And then I help them. I do these little things where I help them get in touch with something, some experience they had, and they get to talk about it. And there's a group of people there. And all of a sudden, they see that the story they're telling has resonance, that these other people actually are listening to what they say, actually feel that their story has meaning.

And when people see that happen, oh my goodness, then they start digging deep. They start really getting into their own stories and being proud of telling and sharing those stories.

And, oh. The whole universe has taken on a different flavor.

people.

I'm in a town called Blythe. There are two prisons out here, Ironwood and Chuckwalla. And I was giving a class at Chuckwalla a couple of years ago. And this one man in the, in the class had been in my class at this other prison six years prior.

By the time I get through them, they got a dozen stories at least. So, this guy brings his, his journal from my old class. He says, Mike, pick one of these stories. That's the one I'll tell. And there was something in there about roosters that caught my eye. So, I said, tell this story.

So, the essence of it was this, Mexican kid, his father used to raise and train fighting roosters, fighting cocks. And as a young boy, he would take them to the matches. As he got older, he started helping his father put on the matches. The realization that he had as he was recounting this story was that everything that had led to him being involved in a life of crime had started there at those matches.

And as I'm telling you right now, I see the look on his face.

He started making the changes in the life to get him away from that.

[00:10:45] MM: Mm hmm.

[00:11:02] MM: Mm hmm.

[00:11:24] MM: Mm hmm.

[00:11:38] MM: Here's the story. Now, storytelling is something I've been exposed to all my life. My mother told me stories, read me stories, and not just stories from books, which there were a lot of those, but she would share her own stories about growing up in Barbados and her love for reading. And that translated to me.

[00:12:21] MM: He's a professional storyteller. I said, “You do what? People pay you to tell stories? How the heck you do that?” and I picked his brain. Now, one of the things about storytellers is that if we encounter somebody crazy enough to want to do this, we will knock ourselves out to encourage them. So, he gave me all this information and insight.

And that evening at the conference, there was a storytelling concert, Peninnah Schram, Audrey Kopp, Karen Golden, all these folks that I would meet that would later become friends and colleagues.

[00:13:02] MM: Yeah, so after that, I'm like, I'm doing this because I asked myself, “What would I do for a living if I was independently wealthy.” I said, “I’d tell stories. That's okay. That's what I'm going to do.”

So, at the time I was living in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles, and I went to the Echo Park library and this librarian is helping me find books because I'm in and out of there every few days with an armload of books. And I had asked Anthony one day, he's helping me find books and he says, man, I see you in here all the time.

You're getting all these books. Are you writing a paper? I said, no, I'm a storyteller. You're a storyteller. I've got these teenagers. They want to learn storytelling. Can you give them a workshop? And I said, sure. My mama told me that if I could read, I could do anything. I can read my butt off. So, I organized this workshop.

It was four Saturdays. Um, yeah, January of 93. I was, uh… 12 kids had signed up. On the first day, only four showed up. And that's fine, because whoever shows up, that's who I work with. Also showing up um, Susan Patron, who was in charge of the children's librarians for the city of Los Angeles.

The library had a program called Grandparents and Books, and they used puppets. And I had asked Anthony if somebody from the Grandparents and Books could come to show the kids how to do puppets. (I don't do puppets) because I knew, For some kids who can't take direct eye contact and things, doing the puppet helps. Well, yeah, there's a distraction for him.

And I thought he was going to get one of the grandparents, but he got Susan and her second kid in command. So, they when they came two weeks later I hadn't showed up those four kids have told their friends and relatives and BAM they had come so they did the workshop. And then Susan invited me to do a personal showcase for all the LA city librarians and I rocked their world.

I got all kinds of bookings and then I discovered this whole world of storytelling in the Southern California area. Community storytellers where I met Kathleen Zundel, um, uh, Pasadena storytellers (Community Storytellers) I met Leslie Perry and on and I kept meeting all these people that kept growing and growing and growing and Here I am running my mouth.

But here's the kicker. So, my second wife she was instrumental in this happening to me. Come to find out, she thought I had lost my damn mind. And she decided to bail on me. And so, I had planned on going to the national storytelling conference, July of 93. And it was in Seattle. Well, when she decided that she was going to leave that changed my whole situation, I wasn't going to be able to go, I had a friend Philip Sloan, PF Sloan, Eve of Destruction, um, Secret Agent Man, and his manager lived in Seattle, and I was going to visit him when I went to the conference.

So that morning, the morning of the conference, I think it was July 7th. I called Phillip to let him know, tell your manager I'm not coming. He says, “Why Mike? I know you wanted to go.” I said, um, “My wife has divorced me. I don't have the money to go.” He said, “Go, I'll pay for it. That conference shaped my storytelling career.”

The people I met, the workshops I took, the books that I got, all of those things helped shape the work that I would do in my early career, which was an emphasis on working with at risk youth, kids in trouble.

And it also started my program of giving away books. So, I got a grant to do a workshop series at the Boys and Girls Clubs in Long Beach. As part of the grant, I bought books. A kid told a story, they got a book. Tell a story, get a book. Cause I'm a big literacy fan, all starting with my mom, and it grew and grew.

And I tell you one of the sweetest things that happened at this workshop in Long Beach. So, I was setting up and I spread the books out on the table that I'm going to be giving and this little girl who wasn't a part of the workshop, she, she looked in and she saw the book.

She said, “Oh, what's going on?” And I told her about the storytelling workshop. She said, “Can I come?” I said, “Oh yeah, you can come. And if you tell a story, you get a book.” “I get a book. Wow. That's great. Today is my birthday” I said, “It's your birthday, go pick a book.” And she went and picked a book. And she came to that workshop every week and got more books.

And I remember one day she told me, “The only books I have are the books that you've given me.”

[00:18:26] BC: ha ha ha ha ha!

[00:18:36] BC: Chapter Two: Planting the Seeds.

[00:19:26] MM: Man, oh man, oh man, I think one of the greatest blessing that I have in my life is helping people to, one, find their stories and two, to realize that their stories are important. Their stories are meaningful and help them delve into it.

And one of the prisons I was at was Valley State Prison up in, Chowchilla, California, around Fresno. I had this guy in my class named Daniel. he was approaching 30, I think, about the time I met him. And he had come into prison as a juvenile. Initially, I didn't know why. I never asked.So, he came to my class and he enjoyed the class. He used to tell these. sort of fractured folk tale kind of stories.

So, one day I'm in between sessions having lunch and he walks by and sees me and he comes in. We're talking at some point. He says, “Uh, Mike, do you know why I'm in prison?” I said, “No.” I never asked if they tell me fine, but I never asked.

So, after that, he starts telling his story in the class, in the third person. Guys knew him. A lot of the guys didn't know why he was in prison And so he told the story in the third person. Over the summer, the prison had a YouTube spoken word event and he told his story in the third person at that event and went out on YouTube.

The first day of my class in the fall, he got up and told the story in the first person. And guys were coming up to him afterwards because they knew that was a major leap for him to have done that. Well, the following week, he says, “Michael, let me tell you what happened.”

But here's the kicker. A few months later, he gets a special delivery package. from the wife and son of the brother he had killed, saying they had seen the news report. They have seen the YouTube presentation. They had forgiven him, and they wanted him to be a part of their lives. I mean, Talk about the power of story. And subsequent to that, there was an event that encompassed my class, but because I had another gig, I wasn't going to be able to stay for the whole thing.

He said, Michael, I'll take care of it. So, he emceed the program and ran everything for me. A couple of years later, he put on his own event. Remember he had taken that domestic violence training program? He put together his own domestic violence training program for the youth offenders in the prison. And he coached like 14 of these guys to tell their story in five minutes.

And that's more than a notion. Okay. just, uh, last year he put on another event, which was humongous over 300 of the prison residents, 14 former inmates who came in to tell their stories. He had coached another seven. He had professors from the universities that give programs there. Okay. over 400, almost 500 people in attendance.

It was mind blowing. And he ran this whole thing, and it was just wonderful to see. Amazing.

[00:24:53] MM: Mm hmm.

[00:25:05] MM: Yes.

[00:25:19] MM: Mm hmm.

[00:25:24] MM: Yes.

[00:25:33] MM: Extremely, man. I, I am constantly amazed because I, I've been doing this long enough. I've seen a lot of my, my guys get out. Last year, three of my guys got their bachelor's degree. One of my guys this year is getting his bachelor's at UCLA and he's starting a master's program. I mean, guys have come out and they've become activists.

They've started organizations, they're helping people, or they've reconnected with their, with their family, with their children. and are an active part in their children's lives. I've seen these amazing things happen, all of which were prompted by these people getting in touch with their stories. And that precipitated the change, and it is ground shaking, earth shattering, It's been joyful to…

[00:26:33] MM: …to watch.

[00:26:33] MM: And I see it in the guys like I got about, um, Oh, about 20 plus guys in my in my two classes I'm doing at this prison and already this is like this. The day was the second day And I've already seen guys start making steps. In terms of getting in touch with their stories

It's just a story, right? know, I mean, one of the things I say to people is, “Imagine if there were some kind of weird Martians that came down, and they had a ray, and what the ray did was, it removed your stories. What would be left?”

[00:27:46] BC: And, some people go, I don't know, I don't know. You know, once you just even begin to think about it a little bit, right, it's a vacuum It, it is…

[00:28:03] BC: And so, part of your job is one of careful, respectful, pulling back the curtain, revealing, All that story stuff in there. And that is a delicate process.

His best friend, when I met him, his best friend in prison was a black guy. And it was being in prison and being in a situation where he could interact with people and see that the nonsense that he had been brought up with was just that, nonsense. And he made that shift. And I've seen it all so many times people as they're, developing their stories. They're becoming aware of their own stories. And all of a sudden, they understand how certain events in their lives had shaped them or misshaped them. And now that they understood the story, they could change it. They could change that story. They could change their life. They could change their vision and their way. Oh my God.

So, here's a question for you, people tell stories every day, often, you know, doing these interviews, I ask people, tell me about how that worked, right? Tell me about what happened when that occurred. And, as you're probably aware, most people edit out all the important stuff.

[00:30:04] BC: Like, I was hot, I was hungry, the people around me looked sad, none of that stuff shows up, right? So I want to know, when you're in a room with people who are, motivated and open and vulnerable enough to try this stuff, What is it that that you, teach them in terms of the crafting, the difference between the story of how I went to the, the grocery store and slipped on the floor, and the crafting of a story that then brings that to life?

Let it speak, let it come out. It wants to come out. Open your mouth and let it. And, oh man, to see these people in every situation,… and I'm talking about, I've done programs for preschool and kindergarten all the way up to seniors and people in prison.

When that light clicks, Oh. It's as if they have suddenly become able to be Rembrandt. And, and just, you know, they become Miles Davis and John Coltrane, letting their stuff out and flow and go and grow. It's wonderful, wonderful, wonderful to behold, and to be in the presence of. And then, the beautiful thing is that now these folks have an understanding of the importance of their stories, the importance of their lives, and the importance of sharing those stories.

“Well, you know, there's knowing how to fix something, how to drive, right? Knowledge. and then there's this wisdom, but of course, wisdom, only comes to those who have [access to all these external resources, you know, go to college, read all these books, you know, this wisdom. And so, you know, they are saying, “I'm I'm just here, and I'm not a philosopher, I've heard things that are that are powerful to me, come from a pulpit or something, but I, I don't have any of that in me at all.”

And then, somebody does what you just described. Which is, all of a sudden, the autopilot kicks in and that voice starts talking and they put a lot of things together from a life that has a lot in it that adds up. And then there's this silence. And then someone in the group, breaks the silence.

[00:33:47] BC: And someone says, “Man, that's deep!”

[00:33:54] BC: You know, and the person goes, “Me, me deep, me deep?” [00:34:00] Yeah, you deep. And that that is another kind of ownership, you know.

[00:35:19] BC: Wow.

And here was what was amazing. The sister of his victim realized it had never occurred to her. [00:36:00] That this murder was not something he had woke up that day and said, this is what I'm going to do now. She told him, thank you for giving me that insight. I ain't forgiven you, but I have deeper insight. I have a deeper understanding. And he wasn't trying to get himself off the hook. And he eventually got out. And it's doing very, very well. Yes.

[00:37:15] MM: Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Every week, she volunteered to do the story bag and every week there were more coherent words, but even before she got to that point, she would point at something. And even though the words weren't the words, you understood what she was trying to say, and the teachers, the teachers were blown away by this.

And I had another scenario, this was a kindergarten class, and this little girl volunteered to get up and do the story bag. Her classmates, they turned to me and said, she's not going to do anything, she's just going to stand up there and cry. Like four or five of them told me that. And then the teacher came up to tell me that.

She went up there, she pulled something out of the bag, and she told probably one of the shortest stories in the history of storytelling. Maybe ten words. But she did it and she didn't cry and [she smiled and the next week she did it again. It's like, oh, opening something up, unlocking something. And I, oh, I tell you, that's one of the most amazing things to see, to be a part of, to see this person who's like, All enclosed and all of a sudden they start to come out. Wow! I love that!

So, I want to know if my grandson who's 16 years old if he said, I like that Michael guy, what he does, uh, what would you tell him about the path, about, What you need to be taking into account as you maybe begin to aspire to this, outrageous thing that that that you do?

I was damn near omnipresent. And I looked for every opportunity I could to tell stories and to listen to stories because listening to stories gave me insights. Listening to stories made me aware of other types of stories that I didn't know about. I always, I, as I told you, I give away books and… I give away books of stories, of storytelling, books about storytelling, because again, people need to understand the importance of their own stories.

And absolutely, its not just amazing, it's essential. And once people come to that understanding and realization, they'll have a new superpower.

[00:42:08] MM: It was a two-part loss. In, uh, February of 2020, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. and I would start cancer treatment, hormone therapy, chemotherapy, and radiation. And during this time of the pandemic, all performances were canceled. So, me and a buddy of mine, Ken Frawley, we have this organization, LA Dream Shapers, and we have a roster of artists who go out and perform.

So, we were videotaping our artists performances to be sold to schools or libraries since nobody could go out. So, I went to record four of my most popular stories, stories I've been telling for literally decades. And I went to open my mouth, and nothing came out. There was nothing there. The first story was on Anansi the spider story, which I'd been telling literally for over 20 years.

[00:43:04] MM: Not only could I not remember the story, I couldn't remember Anansi. I couldn't remember Africa. And I had to fight and go and go and go to where I could piece together enough to tell the stories. And I remember driving home and I'm freaked out by this. And my daughter called me. My daughter had taken care of my brother and sister before they passed.

And they both had some mental things going on. So, when I told her what happened, she says, daddy, that's the side effect of the hormone therapy. Now, knowing that helped me knowing that I hadn't just lost my mind.

[00:44:00] I don't know anything about this thing. And I, I had to remember who I was. I mean, everything was gone. You know, how you try to remember something, you write yourself a note, you put it someplace prominent. It didn't matter. I'd put the note, I'd look up and it might as well have been a blank piece of paper.

And I had to fight. I had to fight to get my mind back. And it is, no doubt in my mind, the hardest thing I've ever had to do. And it was also the most frightening experience. And I've had some frightening experiences. I've been shot at. I've been jumped on by gangs. I've had a lot of stuff happen. But trying to recover and remember who I was, who the people around me were, what my life was. That was soul shaking.

Okay, I got to tell you, this [is really funny. I did lots of things. I read, I started reading about everything and anything, black holes, I started challenging my mind. But one of the things that helped me was NFL Live. These two guys, uh, Dan and, and Ryan, they would break down these plays and I would watch it and be lost, watch it and be lost.

And then one day, I was able to follow their analysis all the way through and understand it. And that was the foundation that I used to reconstruct my mind. NFL Live! Yeah!

[00:45:48] MM: If I ever run into that crew.

[00:45:53] MM: if, I ever see…

[00:45:55] MM: Crying. I couldn't be able to talk.

[00:46:28] MM: Mm-Hmm.

And my question is, as we, um, move forward, hopefully trying to, cultivate a garden that does thrive and is healthy and [does have a potential future that is loving and beautiful and helpful in the world. What is the story strategy for healing the world

So, it's about getting into the stories of others, to understand people, studying different cultures. Whenever I travel, whatever country I go to, I read about that culture. I read the stories, the folk tales, the historical stories of those cultures to give me insight.

And then one of the great things about storytelling is that whatever story comes from one culture, there's a story with similar meaning in another. I see this. There was this story, the Monkey, and the Crocodile, that I first learned in India as a Jataka tale. Then when I started storytelling, I came across the same story in a collection of folktales from East Africa. Then I came across essentially the same story in China and Japan, but the crocodile had become a dragon. And that's what happens when you study stories.

And as you see this, if you allow yourself, you come to understand we all have these stories that deal with these things from our lives, and they're similar all over the world. The climate may be different, there might be different languages, but the essence is the same. We have the stories of our lives and our experiences, and we share them.

And that was like, yeah, I think you're right. and it reminds me of those archetypical stories that show up in everybody's community. it's not like somebody from India got on a plane or a train and came and gave that that same story to the folks in Japan and the folks in East Africa. That's not what happened. These are heart stories. These are archetypical heart stories of the human race. We are connected by so much more than we think.

[00:50:07] BC: those stories are are the through line.

[00:50:17] BC: Yeah. Well, you know, Michael, that's really obvious. And I have to say, you know, in the advice column of, how to be a story maker, I think it's a requirement --- being in love with the world. You know, if you're down on the world, those stories are not going to have a great audience. You know?

[00:50:47] BC: They're not going to attract a big audience, I don't think.

So mentally, I embrace this person into a bubble of pink light and just pump pink at her till I worked up a sweat. And all of a sudden, her whole demeanor and attitude changed. And I came to understand that literally there is love. Power in love. In giving love, in shining love, in sharing love. And that was one heaven of a story. Oh,

[00:51:55] MM: I tell you a book that I, that I highly recommend is [00:52:00] the story factor by Annette Simmons. That is a amazing, amazing, amazing book. The Story Factor by Annette Simmons.

It is a mind blowing, book.

[00:52:16] MM: In fact, My Friday class, I will be dealing with it. She has these six stories of influence. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my vision? What are the stories that make me, who am I?

And I have my guys break these things down. the story factored by Annette Simmons gives some amazing insight and stories about how, the art of storytelling can change the world.

[00:52:51] MM: let's see. I'll be back at it tomorrow and friday and then come back next week for four more days.

[00:53:00] MM: Oh, yeah.

[00:53:09] MM: Oh, my pleasure.

[00:53:11] MM: Take it easy my friend. Be happy, be silly.

And please know that the attention of our community of listeners is our lifeblood. And we don't take it for granted. If you would like to make a contribution to this show, please do so by helping us grow that community by sharing us with your friends and colleagues.

Please also be aware that links to the resources mentioned in this episode are available in our show notes. And as always, you can refer to the transcript of this episode for a double dose of our conversation.

Also, if you have some comments, questions, or ideas about people you think we should be talking to. Drop us a line at csac@artandcommunity.com. Artandcommunity is all one word, and all spelled out.

Change the Story / Change the World is a production of the Center for the Study of Art and Community, our theme and soundscape spring forth from the head heart and hands of the Maestro, Judy Munson, our text editing is by Andre Nnebe, our effects come from freesound.org and our inspiration comes from the ever-present spirit of UKE 235. So, until next time stay well, do good and spread the good word. And once again, please know that this episode has been 100% human.