Episode 134: Telling Your Stories — with Doug Stevenson

“Move forward. Step back and recalibrate. Move forward again.” This is how Doug Stevenson, CEO of Story Theater International, summarizes the story of his life. It’s how he has built a successful life and career as a storyteller, keynote speaker, trainer, and coach.

Doug is a masterful storyteller, but his true gift is helping people become engaging storytellers and unforgettable leaders. He is the author of Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Method, and has delivered storytelling keynotes and workshops for leadership, sales, training, marketing, and HR teams in the US and in 17 other countries.

During this episode, Doug shares:

• How his background as an actor and real estate agent led him to his passion for public speaking and storytelling
• The stories in his own life that have led him to “move forward, step back and recalibrate, move forward again”
• The power of finding and sharing the meaningful moments in life, no matter how small
• How he teaches corporate leaders to tell stories that improve their performance and communications
• How the pandemic forced him to slow down and shift his approach to coaching, public speaking, and life in general

Contact Doug by visiting his website at www.storytelling-in-business.com or via email at deborah@dougstevenson.com. Mention the Beyond 6 Seconds podcast to get a free 20-minute consultation with Doug!

Subscribe to the FREE Beyond 6 Seconds newsletter for all the latest news and updates about my podcast!

The episode transcript is below.

Carolyn Kiel: Hello, and welcome to the Beyond 6 Seconds podcast. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel. And on today’s episode, I am very happy to be here with my guest. Doug Stevenson. Doug is the CEO of Story Theater International and a speaker, trainer and coach. He’s a masterful storyteller, but his true gift is helping others become engaging storytellers and unforgettable leaders.

He is the author of Doug Stevenson’s Story Theater Method and has delivered storytelling keynotes and workshops for leadership, sales, training, marketing, and HR teams in the US and in 17 other countries. Doug, welcome to the podcast.

Doug Stevenson: Thanks a lot Carolyn.

Carolyn Kiel: So happy to have you here today. So, you know, you’re a public speaker and an expert in storytelling, but you actually started out as an actor in your early days, the early part of your career.

So how did that tie into your, your interest in storytelling and help you make that shift?

Doug Stevenson: Wow. Well, you know, I think most of us live a life that is very circuitous and synchronous and strange, and mine is no different. I mean, I literally, from the earliest age I can remember, knew that I wanted to be an actor, that I was destined to be an actor.

And so at the age of 19, I dropped out of college with the idea of transferring to a better college that had a better theater department. And in that summer, in between freshman and sophomore years, I got into an acting class, a real method acting class with a New York actor who was, you know, it was like, Oh my gosh, this is the real thing.

Never went back to college, started studying acting and doing plays in Chicago. I did of mice and men. And you’re a good man Charlie Brown. I was Danny Zuko in the original Grease. You know, I, I just, I did Merchant of Venice, my first Shakespeare show. I did theater in Chicago and I was trying to make a living, but I couldn’t because in Chicago there was just other than TV commercials and modeling.

And take a look at me. Do I look like a model to you? No. So I couldn’t make a living. All of this was community theater. And so I hitchhiked to Hollywood at 22 with a knapsack and 200 bucks in my pocket pocket because I wanted to be in Hollywood where the action was, where there’s movies and TV. Because that’s what I wanted to be. I wanted to be in movies and TV. Well, while I was there, I continued to do everything that I could. I did the community theater. I did showcases for agents. I, you know, I, I finally got an agent and auditioned for movies and TV shows, but year after year after year, plugging away, plugging away, trying and getting better and better as an actor.

But I have absolutely no traction in movies and TVs, other than the occasional one-liner. They’re called day player things. And they’re, they’re like the person who walks in and says, here’s the folder you were looking for. And then they walk off. It’s like, I studied acting for that? You know, it’s like, this is ridiculous.

So after a certain period of time, I started to get so frustrated, so resentful and so angry. And I finally realized I got to get out of here. Cause my soul is in danger. I am so bitter. I’m so resentful. I’m so confused that. I thought this was going to happen. I thought I was destined to do this, and I don’t know if you’ve ever had that feeling in your life.

You think, you know where your life is supposed to go and you make a plan to get there. And then sometimes it works, but sometimes it blows up in your face. Well it was it was really bad for me. And so the theme that I’ve chosen for this show because of my life experience, I am now 70 years of age. So I’ve got lots of chapters in my life is: you move forward, sometimes you step back and recalibrate and then you move forward again.

Well, recalibrated from Chicago and went to Hollywood at the end of 13 years, I finally got in my car and headed East and I recalibrated and move forward again. I ended up in Colorado Springs. I became a real estate agent, which might seem like, where did that come from? Well I was a carpenter in Los Angeles, I made a living as a carpenter. I had my own carpentry and remodeling business, so I knew construction. I knew homes. I knew how to get business on my own. I’ve always been entrepreneurial. I’m a terrible employee. Mm, I’m just a terrible employee. I can’t work for anybody. I hate bosses. So I had my own carpentry business and real estate, it’s like your own business. So I decided I’ll sell houses rather than remodel them. Well, in real estate, I discovered that people gave speeches at rotary clubs in Sertoma clubs and all of these kinds of things, lions clubs. And so I saw that there were people getting up there and speaking at these clubs, but then one day I went to a real estate convention and Carolyn, up on the main stage in front of like 1500 realtors was a professional speaker. And I got it. It’s like that person is not a realtor. That person is getting paid to do a one hour speech. I want to do that. That’s my future. And so I started figuring out how that worked. I went to NSA and Denver, you know, national speakers association, studied that. What had happened over the years in real estate is I had started to give more and more speeches.

I had started to get more and more comfortable figuring out who I was in front of an audience. You know what I mean about figuring out who you are in front of an audience? It takes a while to settle into like, what do I do up there and how do I do this? And what do I have to say? Well, I started to give presentations and I started to feel better about myself because I wasn’t an actor anymore doing somebody else.

It was like me doing me, my own material. And that was very liberating, but it was also very confusing. It’s like, what do I have to say? I don’t have a college degree. I’ve never written a book. I’ve never been a top sales professional. I’ve never been anything, big deal, I’m just Doug. But I figured it out. I started telling stories. I started having a good time. I was really good at the front of the room. People loved it. And eventually it led to me creating this story out of my Hollywood experience.

And this is the link: hollywood to professional speaking. In Los Angeles, I was in an acting class an improv class. And one night we did outer theater, which meant we left the building. We went out into the community and the assignment was do something that you would never do. Something that you’re scared to do, something that’s a risk. Go out there and do that you and your partner, and then come back and we’ll talk about it. So I went streaking.

Carolyn Kiel: Wow.

Doug Stevenson: And I got arrested naked in public in West Los Angeles. Handcuffed naked, taken to the police station naked in the back of a police car. Oh my gosh. Well, I realized that that was a pretty funny story. Not when it was happening, but in retrospect.

Carolyn Kiel: Yes.

Doug Stevenson: And so I started telling that story and I started evolving that story. And eventually in Colorado Springs, I got really good at telling that story.

And that’s the story that I brought to NSA when I did a showcase. And when I did that showcase at NSA in front of other professional speakers, they all came up to me like I was this revelation. Like I was just doing something they’d never seen before. What is this form of storytelling? Well, what I hadn’t realized Carolyn is I had combined acting out scenes as if I was an actor in a play and narrating the story as if I was telling a story.

So I would tell then I would show, then I would tell then I would show, well that eventually became the story theater method. Started teaching other speakers, started becoming really good at figuring out, how do you craft a story? How do you use what I learned in Shakespeare? How do you learn what I used in comedy and improv?

How do you put all of this stuff together? But over 25 years, I have created this methodology. It led me into keynote speaking. The positive power of change, get over it, was my keynote. I did that for many years until this story theater methodology and teaching this storytelling thing became so big in my life that I had to acknowledge I’ve given birth to this baby and it’s growing up and it’s becoming amazing. And it’s, it’s, it’s paying the bills and I’m no longer interested in doing the change keynote. I want to teach storytelling. And so this is where I am now. Having gone through all of these changes, Chicago to Los Angeles, to Colorado Springs, to Tucson, professional speaker, professional actor, mobile disc jockey, carpenter, realtor, all these just so much evolution. Moving forward, stepping back, recalibrating, moving forward again, over and over and over and over again. That’s my life. And at this point, it’s like, Ooh, that’s a lot.

Carolyn Kiel: Oh, it is absolutely a lot. And it’s so interesting how all of your experiences, and I guess this goes for, for all of us, all of those different experiences that maybe at the time didn’t seem like they tied together, or they just seemed random or quote, unquote didn’t work out the way that you thought they were, but everything builds on everything else and it all influences and it all comes together into the present that you have now.

Doug Stevenson: I would agree. I would agree at that. W what I’ve realized is when you’re in a pattern, you don’t recognize the pattern. It takes years to be able to look back at all of the patterns and all of the relationships and all the failures and mistakes and small disasters and the successes. And you, you look at it all, and it starts to make sense.

It’s just really painful when you’re in the midst of something that’s not working and you’re thinking, Oh my God, my life is a mess and I’m in pain. My heart is broken or it’s not working or I’m poor, or, but I can sit here now and go, you know what, that time, when I was living in the back of my truck in LA, that added to the, to the, to the picture that, that helped me in a certain way, gave me a story for one thing.

But also it’s like, wow. What did I do to myself? So you’ll learn, where was I self-inflicting a wound, and where were the wounds coming from outside? And how did I deal with all that? How do I move forward? How do I recalibrate and then move forward again?

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely. And I’m curious as you’re going through all this, because it’s true.

You don’t realize the significance of the experience when you’re going through it. Did you ever have like a habit of journaling or recording your feelings and your thoughts at the time? Because I find my challenge is if I’m trying to think about a story for myself, a lot of times it’s like I get amnesia. It’s like, I can’t remember anything about my past that’s interesting. So did you have ways at the time to help yourself remember, or just through reflecting, you were able to recall it?

Doug Stevenson: Well, it in, in my teaching, this storytelling thing, I came up against a lot of people who’d come to him and say, Doug, I want to be a good storyteller, but I don’t have any stories. And what I heard like, what do you mean you don’t have any stories? They’re like, well, I’ve never climbed Mount Everest. I’ve never survived cancer. I’ve never survived a car crash. I. And I listened to that go, Oh, you think stories have to be big disaster stories. They all have to be Titanic. No, no, no, no. I don’t have any of those stories. And you don’t need any of those stories. Meaningful moments. That’s what you look for. You look for meaningful moments. Well, when I went streaking and got arrested naked, It was very clear to me and I wasn’t a storyteller at the time. I was an actor trying to get into plays and movies and TV, but even I woke up the next day and went well, that’s something. That was interesting. That’s pretty fascinating. I don’t know what to do with it. I mean, I tried to do it as a standup comedy act and I didn’t get any laughs becauseI did not know how to tell a story. I only knew how to talk, but I was an actor. I needed a director. I needed a character, I needed lines.

And when it came to me just doing my own stuff. But to answer your question, you go back in time and you just look for moments, meaningful moments. Where did you learn a life lesson? And they’re generally wrapped around an obstacle or a challenge or a mistake, or a small disaster, a heartbreak, you know, a bad boss, getting fired, having to move. You know, we have obstacles, we have challenges. And around that friction, we look for those moments of friction, those moments of conflict. And we say, ah, that’s a good place where stories are. Because if you look at movies and TV, they’re all built around conflict. Every love story is a story of two people who didn’t get along, who eventually fell in love. It’s not two people who fell in love because they’re perfectly compatible, and that’s the whole movie, right? When Harry met Sally is, is a perfect example of two people who were like this. And then they were like this. It’s like, well, that’s all story. So we all have them, but you need to look for these meaningful moments and do not minimize your life experience. Your life experience, my life experience, profound all over the place. The moment in the crafting of it becomes profound. See, I always look at everything in terms of what would be the theme of this? What would be the lesson of this? What, what, why would I tell this? That’s why before I got online with you today, I sat down and said, if I’m going to talk about my life, what is, what is the theme? What would be a takeaway, a branding lesson for people? Move forward. Step back, recalibrate, move forward. So see, I always look for the theme. I always look for some kind of how, how can I simplify it all down into something that people can go, you know, I move forward, but I don’t step back and recalibrate very well. I need to recalibrate better and then just move forward. Well, that’s life. That’s your life. That’s my life. I’m not special. I just know how to take it and turn it into a story.

Carolyn Kiel:  Right. Stephen Covey, begin with the end in mind, sort of know where you want to go and what you want to leave.

Doug Stevenson: Yeah. I, I say begin with the point of mind, begin with the lesson in mind.

Okay. That happened. What’s the point? Yeah. What’s the lesson that I learned? What did I learn from hitchhiking across country? There’s a lesson there. I have a story about my son Bennett, my step son, Bennett when he was 15 and he and I did not get along. I was a stepfather. He didn’t like me. He’s a brilliant genius engineer, kind of kid. I’m a goofy verbal vomit kind of guy. We did not get along. I have a story about learning how to get along with Bennett, how to bond with Bennett. There’s all these different stories from my life. And I just look at a meaningful moment.

Carolyn Kiel: Absolutely. And you know, you’re talking a little bit about the different types of structure that you use in your story, storytelling method, which I guess became the nine steps of story structure. How did you discover that all stories basically have or all good stories have a consistent structure?

Doug Stevenson: Well, I didn’t realize this. It’s one of those things that in retrospect I realized. When I was in a play, or going to a play, cause I went to a lot of theater in LA just to get to know different theaters and different directors and different things going on, and I’d go to different plays and I’d be in different plays. And I started to notice formats and structures that worked, and I did a bunch of Shakespeare. In one play in particular Midsummer night’s dream has been performed by high school audiences, professional audiences amateur audiences. And it always works because of the structure because of the way that it works, where it’s constructed and I’ve seen probably 20 different Shakespeare plays and you start to look at them and go, hi, I’m I’m I’m I’m seeing what he’s doing here.

The entrances and the exits and this group of people in this group of people in serious and comedic, and I’m starting to see the weaving and the themes and the structures. And not until later that I realized I do this with movies too. I watched the movie and I say, Oh, there’s a format. They start out sitting on a park bench.

They go through this entire journey and they end up sitting on a park bench. Oh, that’s a format, that’s a structure. Or they start out at the end of the movie and then they go back and they move forward. And then we come back to the end of the movie. Oh, That’s a structure, that’s a format. And so I’ve always been studying these things.

And if there’s one gift that I have, it’s the ability to take something amorphous and break it down into component parts, to be able to teach it. Well, that’s where my nine steps came from the first six steps. So the nine steps are just typical story structure is it’s no different than a movie.

Now for speaking, it’s simplified because people have come to me and said, well, you know, I saw this movie the other day where they started at the end, and then they went back to the beginning and then they kept going back and forth in time. And I said, yeah, well, they’ve got a director, they’ve got cinematographers. They’ve, they’ve got a script. They’ve got all of that resource. You’ve got an audience sitting in front of you and you’re not going to be able to do that to them. it’ll confuse them. And unless you’re amazing at it, you’re going to fall on your face too. So keep it simple. Yeah. Keep it simple.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Well that’s really powerful. Wow. So now you work with businesses or helping people share the stories in business settings a lot of times. And I think a lot of us have, you know, kind of heard that, Oh, you know, storytelling is like really important in business and really important in leadership. But I mean, specifically, what is the power of storytelling when it comes down to business or leadership and why is it so critical?

Doug Stevenson: Well, it comes down to the power of influence and persuasion. People in business are often deluged with data and boring slides and too much content. Which is of course what you and I probably did a lot too — go into a 60 minute keynote with two hours and 45 minutes worth of content. Well, in, in, in corporate, they don’t understand emotion in presentation. They don’t understand space in presentation. They don’t understand connection, emotional connection and imagery. They don’t understand story, but they know they need it because they look at somebody like you or me. Getting up there and emoting and being persuasive and touching their heart and their mind and their soul. And they look at that and they go, you know, our leaders need to do that.

We suck. Our salespeople don’t do that. They go out and they do data dumps. And so they have become very aware that they need to learn the art and craft of storytelling so that they can be more persuasive. A leader needs to be able to get his people to come on board with a new initiative or a change. A sales person needs to be able to overcome obstacles with a story, anticipate obstacles with a story, tell a story that changes the dynamic of the conversation from resistance to openness.

And so and, and quite honestly, it’s interesting. I never started out to teach storytelling in corporate to leaders, to salespeople, to marketers. I didn’t start out there, but all of a sudden I got asked to come speak at a pharmaceutical company to their leaders. It’s like, okay. And I go into a room and they asked me questions that I’ve never heard before.

It’s like, Oh, so that’s what their issue is. And so it evolves. It just, it just evolves. But the principles come down to, can you inspire participation? Can you influence someone to see something differently? Can you persuade someone to go along with something that they’re resistant to? Can you persuade them to give it a shot? Story does that, and logic and linear thinking do not. PowerPoint slides with bullets that put people into a content coma do not. And so they look at me and all of the now tens of thousands of storytelling experts that have come onto the scene to give them guidance and it’s like, “help us not be boring, help us not be pathetic.”

And basically all I’m saying to them is tell stories from your life and then link it over to the business.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. It’s something that easily gets forgotten. And in corporate, I mean, I know I’ve sat through plenty of those presentations that are just data dumps and I’ve probably given several presentations that were just like that.

It’s a, I don’t know if it’s the whole mantra of, you know, emotion has no place in business, but of course that’s ridiculous. That’s emotion is what drives people. It’s what brings people to make decisions and really understand the data that’s in front of you.

Doug Stevenson: One of the things about acting that has helped me is in acting you go towards the emotion. Your job is to emote. Your job is to find the emotion and express the emotion, anger, rage, sorrow, heartbreak, whatever it is, you go to acting class to learn how to do that. Well, I came into speaking very comfortable with emotion. Well, when they see somebody who’s really comfortable with emotion, they go, he’s the guy to teach us how to be more emotional within a context within a construct, but he can help us to contextualize how do you make an emotional connection? Because basically everybody that comes to me says we need to make an emotional connection. We don’t know how. So they’re looking for somebody who can like bridge the gap between corporate speak and storytelling speak and emotional engagement and connection.

They want them. They know they need that. They’re willing to invest in that. It scares them, but you know, I, I’m working with people from all over the world now. Wow. If there’s one gift that this last year of COVID has given us, is that everybody is far more comfortable with zoom and, and Microsoft teams and all of these online meetings like we’re doing right now.

Everybody’s much more comfortable with it. And they think, you know, we actually could do a training this way. Yeah. And we could have a remote keynote, because I’m not going to go to India to do a keynote for 60 minutes. And I’m not, that’s not the way it works anymore.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. Yeah. And definitely your whole theme of, of today’s show where you’re really just sort of, you know, looking back and stopping and assessing where you are in your life. I think that’s something that probably a lot of us have done over the past, I guess, coming on year and a half with with COVID and the pandemic and our whole sort of our quote, unquote, normal lives being upended and just trying to figure out, you know, am I, you know, what am I doing? And am I happy? Am I fulfilled with what I’m doing? Should I try something else? And you said, just try, try new things and see where it ends up.

Doug Stevenson: Well, they didn’t, they didn’t the COVID give you the space to consider your life and decide if you want to continue in the same direction. Carolyn?

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah. I mean, it’s you know, it it’s, it’s been interesting, you know, I was podcasting before the pandemic, but the podcast has certainly changed during that time, in terms of the people that I talk with and my goals about who, you know, what kind of guests I want to have on the show, what kind of lessons I want to share. So it’s a, and the types of relationships and bonds that I’ve been able to make remotely with other people have been very different for change.

Doug Stevenson: Well, I think it’s changed it. It happened to me at just the right time, because I’ve been speaking for 30 years. I’ve I’ve got a million miles with United airlines. I mean, it’s like I’ve been in 17 different countries speaking. I’ve been all over the place for a long time, up and down and up and down and back and forth and chasing the next booking and chasing the next booking and getting ready and recalibrating, recovering and going back. It’s like… ugh… the COVID is like, it all shut down was like, wow, this is what this feels like to just be home for months at a time. This is okay. Freaked me out at first. But after a while, it’s like, I would like this to be my forever.

Carolyn Kiel: You don’t want to go back to running around all over the world.

Doug Stevenson: Well, I, for those, for those people that are listening to this who make a living on the road, I don’t know anybody who, very few love it. Very few love a life on the road, going up and down and airport food and being alone and hotels.

It’s like, I, I had a booking a couple of years ago in Miami and it was the most amazing hotel. And I walked into my suite in this hotel, overlooking the Bay and Miami. And it’s like this elegant amazing. I’m like walking around in this thing. It’s like, This is like a $500 a night room. This thing is amazing — and I don’t care! I’d be fine with holiday Inn express. I, this doesn’t make a difference as long as it’s got a coffee pot and it just, it just brought it into perspective to me. It’s like, it’s not my bed. It’s not breakfast with Deborah at the kitchen table. It’s another hotel and another booking and yes, they’re fun and they’re joyous.

But. This COVID thing hit me at a time in my life where I was going, when do I get to stop? And so for me, it’s like, Oh, I guess I’m stopped. I’m not completely stopped, but this has given me the freedom to say, I’m going to be very picky about what I do from now on. I’m choosing a different lifestyle, but I’m also 70. And that makes a difference. You feel different. The road is not so friendly when you’re 70, it’s harder. You know, so I’m, I’m grateful for this in, in that it’s given me the opportunity to say, Oh, I can actually choose to be done. I can, I can choose that. Wow. Really? I can choose that. Cause when you’re in the hamster wheel, it’s next, next, next, next, next, next, next grab, grab, grab, grab. That whole I needed, I needed, I wanted, I wanted, I needed it. I need it. And then you get, and you go, Ugh, this is like the dog that caught the tire on the car. I got the booking, but it’s in Amsterdam. Aaah!

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, it’s exhausting. In one of your your newsletters I had read a couple of months ago, I think one of the things you missed about presenting was that sort of in-person engagement with the audience. And of course, remote presenting, I mean, all, any presenters kind of feel that who really enjoy having that audience interaction. It’s very different. And sometimes I feel like I’m talking to the wall, depending on the platform. So how has that been for you? Have you been able to sort of feel that audience energy?

Doug Stevenson: No, but I’ve had enough. I’ve been in front of audience since, since I was 19, I’ve been marketing and selling myself since I was 19. I’ve been on stage as an actor, as a standup comedian, as a rock and roll singer. I’ve been in comedy. I’ve been in drama. I’ve done speeches all over the world. It’s like, I, you know, there was a point at which I was giving a keynote one day and then coaching somebody else on their keynote the next day.

And I was more fulfilled coaching somebody else on their keynote than I was giving one. And I kind of had to sit back and go, Oh, let’s recalibrate. Where is our joy? Our joy is no longer getting the applause. Our joy is helping someone else get the applause. And yes, I love being in front of an audience and Carolyn I’m good at it.

I’ve I’ve massaged and evolved my skills and I’m really comfortable at the front of the room. I love it. I’m good at it. Audiences love it. They think I’m great, but I no longer need it. It doesn’t fulfill me anymore. So do I miss that audience interaction? Yes and no. I re I really don’t miss it because I’ve, I’ve, I’ve had my fill of it.

I’ve done enough. It’s kind of like, okay, you you’ve eaten the meal and now you’ve had the dessert and then they bring out another meal to start over. It’s like, no, no, no, no. I just ate the meal. I’m done. That was enough. So my plate’s kind of full. That doesn’t mean I won’t do coaching. That doesn’t mean I won’t do the occasional booking somewhere, but I’m really, you know, kind of guarded about it at this point for a lot of reasons, psychological, emotional. physical.

Yeah. There’s different times in your life when you’re at different places and you have to acknowledge where you are. You have to like, like just sink into that and sometimes just recalibrate and go, Oh, I don’t want to do that anymore. Now I want to do this. It’s not like I don’t want to do anything anymore, but I get to choose what do I want to do. And I’m choosing to be with you.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, and I do so appreciate that. It’s it’s it’s as you said, it really is critical. You know, we only have so much time and energy and it’s okay to look at something that you once loved and was the one thing that you wanted to devote yourself to and realize that your interests and your talents and your skills might be shifting a little bit and to sort of go into a different direction, explore new things and just sort of follow what energizes you. I mean, especially in this current time where there’s so much, that’s exhausting about just sometimes just trying to get through the day with things changing every day, and the uncertainty is that you really have to understand where you can get that energy from and follow that. So, you know.

Doug Stevenson: Yeah it’s been interesting to have to live with fear for a long time and slowly be coming out of that. That’s debilitating. Yeah. Fear is incredibly debilitating on every level, but boy, Oh boy.

I don’t know about you. I have had a lot of fear at the last year. Am I going to get sick? Am I going to die? Am I not going to get to see my kids and my grandkids? Am I going to die? It’s like, whew, that’s weird! Who wants to deal with that? But when you’re my age, it’s, it’s closer because who who’s died in the pandemic? Old people. So it’s different. Everything is different. Yeah.

Carolyn Kiel: And yeah, I mean, and the fear and, you know, the, the uncertainty as well, as far as, you know, am I am, even if you know, I I’ve been relatively lucky. I can work remotely, you know, I have, you know, I’m here with my husband. We, you know, have enough resources, but still it’s like the uncertainty of like, you know, Oh, is it safe for me to go outside? Am I going to get sick? Am I going to get somebody else sick without realizing it and like, what do I do to be, and, you know, just things changing all the time. So, yeah. I mean, it is important to just, you know, I feel like as, as we learn more and more about what’s been going on, you know, a little more of the uncertainty starts to go away, but but it’s exhausting. You know, it’s been going on for a long time and in some ways I feel like the time right now, when we sort of see people, at least in this country starting to come out of it, in some ways it’s more exhausting than when things first happened or it’s just very different.

Doug Stevenson: Well, it’s, it’s mixed emotions. Happy one moment. Sad another moment. Confused. It’s just, it’s just so much is going on. The world is in such turmoil. We’ve got so many huge issues going on and yet it always comes down to me, sitting in myself saying, what do I want to do with this? And how do I move through this?

And when, when we talked earlier about how everything is connected, everything builds on everything else. You can draw back from something in the past and bring it into the future. When I was 22 and I hitchhiked from Chicago to Los Angeles, I did not know anybody in LA. I had a knapsack and 250 bucks. I was scared.

I was stepping into some weird experiences, like people get killed hitchhiking, but I’m doing this because of the why. Why is so strong. Why is, I need to get to Hollywood. Why, I want to be an actor. Why, I want to help people. Why, I want to make people laugh. That why behind it was so strong that I set out on this journey and I stuck my thumb out and I was petrified, freaking out for awhile.

And after the third or the fourth ride, it’s like, Oh, people stop and pick me up and then somebody else stops and picks me up. And I draw back on things like that. It’s like, so when you’re in a completely unknown, fearful situation, what do you draw back on? Trust and faith. I trusted that it was going to somehow work out.

And I didn’t know how, which is one of my greatest gifts. I don’t need to know how, I just do stuff. And faith. I had faith that if I was supposed to die, I was going to die. And if I was supposed to make it to LA alive, I was going to make it to LA alive. I believe in God. And I believe that there’s a destiny and I believe that it all works out for a reason.

And so now when I live in this moment of confusion and strangeness and weirdness and well, what’s my next 10 years going to be like: Trust the process, have faith that things work out because they always have, not always to my liking, but they have, and sometimes they work out better. My hitchhiking experience was miraculous.

It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. Scariest thing. Amazing. It’s, getting arrested naked — scary, weird, terrible. It turns out that that’s a million dollar story. I’ve made a fortune on that story over the years, it’s been the entire foundation of my speaking career. So just look at your failures, mistakes and small disasters and say, thank you.

Thank you. That was good. Okay. I don’t know what I’m going to do with that. I remember a long time ago, there was a Garth Brooks song. I thank God for unanswered prayers. That was the song. That was a lyric. I thank God for unanswered prayers. Some of the things that didn’t come true, the relationships that fell apart, the jobs that you didn’t get.

I thank God for unanswered prayers. I live by that quite a bit because when things, when I don’t get chosen for a booking, when something doesn’t go according to plan, when a flight gets delayed, okay, well, this is the way it’s supposed to be. So. Let’s go get lunch.

Carolyn Kiel: Well, hopefully from the experiences of certainly the past year and a half or so, we can we should, we should all look back and reflect and, and see where we can get some good stories where we can help inspire and motivate others.

Doug Stevenson: Right. Well, just also just how can you, how can you, w what lessons did you learn from that and how can you internalize that and, and make a choice? Either I’m going to continue on the same course because I like it. It’s good for me, it’s healthy for me. It’s what I need right now. Or I’m going to continue on this course for another year or two, but I got to start making some plans to make a change or no I’m done with that. I’m done with that. I’m not doing that anymore. Which a lot of people are making that decision.

It’s like, I’m not going back to that life. Yeah. Not going back to that job. Not going back to that office. Not going back to that two hour commute each day. Not going to do it. Yeah. Not going to do it. And that’s good. Let go, move on, recalibrate.

Carolyn Kiel: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. Well, Doug, this has been such a powerful conversation and I’ve loved listening to your stories. How can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about the type of work that you do?

Doug Stevenson: Well, the the easiest way is just to send an email to Deborah. I think anyone who has ever contacted my office has the pleasure of dealing with Deborah Merriman, my wife, my business partner, my best friend, and the VP of everything in our office.

So you send an email to Deborah at DougStevenson.com, D E B O R A H @dougstevenson.com. And you just, you know, put in a subject line, I want to talk about coaching or a consultation. Basically. I’ve been offering everybody that listens to things like this, a free 20 minute consultation to just talk about whatever. I mean the speaking business or just whatever, I don’t care. It’s just, I just like to connect with people for 20 minutes.

Carolyn Kiel: Great. That’s fantastic. And I’ll, I’ll put Deborah’s email address in the show notes so that people can just click on it.

Doug Stevenson: You can put website address too: www.storytelling-in-business.com.

Carolyn Kiel: Great. I’ll put that there as well. Wonderful. Well, thanks so much, Doug. As we close out, is there anything else that you’d like our listeners to know or anything that they can do to help or support you?

Doug Stevenson: I’m I’m, I’m good. I’m, I’m pretty well supported by things. If, if somebody is looking for coaching or consulting and all of those kinds of things, sure, give me a call, but more than anything, I think we’re all a resource for each other. We all help each other. And don’t be afraid to tell your stories. Don’t be afraid to feel your story and tell the truth. Start with the point in mind, know what you want to say, know what the story is all about, but tell your stories.

Other people learn from you. You might not think your life is profound, but the story relates to other people in a profound way. So tell your story, find your stories and tell your stories.

Carolyn Kiel: Wonderful. Great words to end on. Thank you so much, Doug, for your time and your wisdom today.

Doug Stevenson:  Thank you. Be well.

Carolyn Kiel: Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help us spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend. Give us a shoutout on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of our episodes on our website and sign up for our free newsletter at www.beyond6seconds.com. Until next time.