Helen (00:02.109)

Lisa, we are starting this conversation, which I'm so grateful to have with you, with your first book, Wired for Story. And really starting from the very beginning, because as you state in this amazing book, that from when we're born, from infancy, we're not passively receiving stories like we think we might when we're telling our babies stories.

Lisa Cron (00:03.906)

Yes.

Helen (00:30.336)

We're actually using them to navigate through life, even from that early age. And I just love to open this conversation with your thoughts on that.

Lisa Cron (00:41.72)

Yeah, mean, that's because we think in story. Story is literally built into the architecture of the brain. And we have what's known when we're babies as a vidity for patternicity, which is why you never want to use $25 words because like, what does that mean? And it means we are immediately looking for if this, then that patterns. And once we get one, like, you if I cry real loud, those nice people are going to come in and give me milk. It gets relegated down to our cognitive unconscious.

And now we just assume that that is going to happen. We have to think about it anymore. But we take everything in based from the time we're babies all the way up based on one very simple metric. And that is how will that thing affect me? And that means that that thing, when we're older, obviously, we need to unpack a fact that we've gotten. First, we have to be able to unpack it and know what it means. And then very explicitly.

specifically, how will that affect me boots on the ground given my agenda? Does it help me or does it hurt me? Does it keep me safe or does it not? And I don't just mean safe like safe like they said, lie and run and I better run or you know, I'm going to end up lion's lunch, but safe like how I see myself, how my tribe sees me because we are wired. I mean, that is the other thing that we're wired to need to belong to a group. When people go,

Helen (01:46.624)

and

Lisa Cron (02:06.028)

You know, I'm a lone wolf. I always want to go, you do know wolves travel in packs, right? And a wolf that's a lone wolf is actually one that's done something so egregious to the pack that it's been ostracized and left to die. We are all hardwired to need other people because that is what allowed us that last big growth spurt our brain had about a hundred thousand years ago was when, you know, they thought for a long time it was, we got the ability to think rationally, you know, to think analytically, which is true.

Helen (02:26.826)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (02:35.8)

But the other thing that we got and the thing that we needed or that wouldn't have mattered at all was we were wired to need to belong to a group. It is as hardwired as is our need for food, air, and water because once we looked at a problem that we had and open-endedly we could solve it, which is what we can do that so many other species can't, it's like one person couldn't solve it alone. We needed to get together, to band together, to work together, to put that solution into practice. And maybe it worked, maybe it didn't, maybe we needed another one.

Helen (02:43.38)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (03:05.357)

But that's why we all needed to learn to do, you know, that thing that they've been telling us to do since kindergarten, work well with others. And that is hardwired. That is what allowed us. We were somewhere in the middle of the food chain at that time and we cut the line. We leapt to the front. that's, think why, I hate saying it this way, we screwed up so much. We didn't earn our way there. We just immediately got there. And so while technically we can do these amazing things,

Helen (03:19.134)

Yes, we did.

Lisa Cron (03:35.406)

in terms of how we see ourselves and other people and what we need, that has not evolved. We're wired to live in a world we don't live in anymore. We are wired, and then I'll shut up on all this, but I love these things, we are wired to live in a world where the most damage that you could do is based on how far you could throw a rock. We do not live in that world anymore, sadly. No.

Helen (03:54.4)

So true. We do not, we do not. So taking it back to that question, that survival question, what am I going to learn here that will help me survive or succeed? And one thing that really I loved from the book was this idea of this sort of practice world that we create with stories where we get to rehearse.

Lisa Cron (04:02.264)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Cron (04:11.01)

Yes.

Helen (04:22.622)

choices and predict danger and test potential actions safely and that was what helped us navigate danger by having this flight simulator in our brain.

Lisa Cron (04:34.83)

100%. I mean, just think of story as the world's first virtual reality minus that really geeky visor. Because I mean, so often when you think, if we didn't have story, we would be in the now all the time. And I don't care what Eckhart Tolle or all the New Age gurus say, if you were in the now all the time, we wouldn't be here because you wouldn't have any idea that there even wasn't tomorrow, right? Let alone the dangers and delights that might be waiting for you here. It's story that let us step out of the present.

So we can envision the future, and this is the key thing, to deal with a thing that scared us from time immemorial more than anything. And sometimes people will go, death. It's like, yeah, that's pretty scary, I get it. But there's a bigger bucket that that fits into, and that's the unknown and the unexpected. Because how often does what you expect to have happen actually happen? And how often when it does, does it feel the way?

Helen (05:18.837)

Mm.

Lisa Cron (05:26.284)

You thought it would. I mean, this is the basis of every rom-com out there, right? I thought if I got this person, it would be good. And now I got them and it's like, uh-oh, it doesn't feel like I thought it would. That's what stories do. They are simulations. mean, that's the biggest, the biggest problem I have on one level with the business world is that the notion that facts are hard data, that's hard science and story is soft science. And it's the other way around. It is a hundred percent.

Helen (05:36.297)

Hmm.

Lisa Cron (05:53.004)

the other way around. is story. We don't turn to story to escape reality. We turn to story to navigate reality. And that's because, as I'm fond of saying, story takes big ideas, dry facts, abstract concepts, and translates them into something very, very, very specific so we can experience them and figure out what we need to do there for. Story's hard science. We think in story. If you give us a fact and we can unpack it,

Helen (06:15.38)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (06:21.108)

and we can think about how it's gonna affect us, we are turning it into story. We translate everything into story and how it's gonna affect us and not because we're conceited or we're self-centered or we're narcissists, but because we're wired to, what do they say that biological creatures, survival and procreate. Those are the two things that we're hardwired for. Survival first, put your oxygen mask on first. That is the first thing that we ask.

Helen (06:24.832)

100 %

Helen (06:38.878)

Mm-hmm.

Helen (06:43.296)

And story rewards us, doesn't it, biochemically with dopamine and cortisol and oxytocin.

Lisa Cron (06:49.102)

Oh, Oh, yeah. Oh, it is. is. All story. Oh, 100%. All story, like all life, is emotion-based. If you couldn't feel and process emotion, you couldn't make a single rational decision, which flies in the face of what we've been taught. You're taught if you want to make a decision, you marshal all the facts, all the figures, you analyze it dispassionately in the cold light of objective reason. And while you're doing that, you keep emotion at bay.

Because it's an irascible scamp, it'll tiptoe in, cloud your judgment, it'll make a decision that you're going to ruin the morning. And let's face it, that is a great model because it makes us feel so safe. It makes us feel so secure. It makes us feel that thing that we want to feel more than anything, which is in control. It's a great model. It just turns out not to be true. We don't make decisions based on a rational analysis of the situation. We make decisions based on how the rational analysis makes us feel. All comes back.

you feel because emotion if I could just say this one thing because this is my big thing in life you know story life whatever is we so misunderstand emotion Plato got it a hundred percent wrong bless his heart and I mean that purely in the American southern sense of the expression bless his heart you know it was like emotion it was like you know logic and reason was the and he said this the beautiful magnificent white steed was good and emotion was the black steed and it was bad and emotion's soul goal

is to cloud your judgment because reason is there and it's gonna be able to look at things objectively. You have no skin in the game and so it's gonna find an objective truth out there. And it just isn't true. It is not how we work. What emotion does is, emotion isn't some nebulous thing with soul, goal, and subvert reason. Emotion telegraphs meaning. Emotion is a delivery system. goes into...

Helen (08:35.678)

Hmm.

Lisa Cron (08:39.498)

our past and goes, what does this mean to me? What experiences have I had that taught me what this means? And then the feeling is what lets you know what you believe. That's what emotion does. It's a conduit. It's not a thing in and of itself. It lets you know how you feel. And that's how you make the decisions that you make. Everybody, all of us, it's a blessing.

Helen (08:59.048)

And that's why we can't really put our finger on or understand why we so are connected with stories, why we lean in when people share stories, why we feel something. And it's this mirror neuron that fires when the protagonist's internal goal or the person who's telling the story matches with our own, right?

Lisa Cron (09:13.549)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Cron (09:21.702)

yeah?

Lisa Cron (09:24.928)

Yes, 100%. I mean, when you go, I'm on the same wavelength, you literally are. They've done functional MRI studies that show when you're lost in a story, same areas of your brain are lighting up that would light up if you were doing what the character's doing. Jonathan Gottschall in his book, The Storytelling Animal, talks about, you know, when you're in that fMRI tube or whatever it is that does that, whatever they are, that your brain isn't acting as an observer. Your brain is acting.

Helen (09:41.653)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (09:54.54)

as participant, you really are there. And that's why stories, I mean, I like to redefine meanings of things that people will go, stories are those movies, it's just mindless entertainment. It's like, there's no such thing as mindless entertainment because what stories do is they come in and they make us feel something. It comes in through your gut because you are experiencing it again, based on things that happen, not just airy-fairy feelings.

It comes in through your gut and then it changes how you see the world. And then it changes what you do. That is what stories do. So if you want to think of mindless entertainment that way, it doesn't go through the thinking part of your brain, which is why, you know, hello QAnon. mean, that's all we have. We have all the way to think about it a little bit. We might question it. But then things like QAnon, answers a need that we have that is deeper than that. It isn't about believing some utterly ridiculous, you know,

that the Democrats are like killing babies in the basement of a pizza parlor that has no basement. Because it's satisfying a deeper need, but for very specific reasons. Very specific reasons.

Helen (10:54.664)

Yes, the cabal, yes.

Helen (11:08.384)

And this sort of thing about the brain's pattern addiction, so that our brains thrive on patterns. And we evolve to recognise these sort of setups and payoffs. And story works because it sort of creates these causal relationships.

Lisa Cron (11:12.406)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (11:24.206)

Well, it causal, yes, I mean, absolutely, but it also has to start with something that hooks us biologically immediately. I mean, that's I can talk about the three hormones if you like at this point that that stories do. This comes from the work of Paul Zach, who I don't know if you may be on.

Helen (11:35.008)

Mm-hmm.

Helen (11:43.749)

Yes, I have read some papers on that Paul Zach has written. Yes.

Lisa Cron (11:48.354)

Yeah, he's fascinating because he looks at story in the brain, but from a business point of view, like if you're writing a fundraising letter, you know, what's going to pull people in? And he says, it's a chemical cocktail of three hormones, three chemicals that have to be triggered simultaneously. So it's like all at once, but we have to talk about them like in a linear way, but this isn't linear. So the first one, along with the story piece that's there is dopamine, which I think is also really misunderstood because we tend to think of things in a simple way.

So we think of dopamine as like its pleasure, it's a reward, you know, chemical. But dopamine is actually curiosity because you might get something. You're going to follow your curiosity. So first it's dopamine. And the first thing in a story is surprise. Basically, I thought this one thing was going to happen and something else happens instead. And that grabs your attention because the thinking part of our brain, which is there for things that we don't immediately know the answer to. That's why most of the decisions we make in the day is near cognitive unconscious.

which is important because we make, what is it, like 35,000 decisions a day and we're only consciously aware of about 70. That's because the thinking part of your brain has to be left open so that if something's happening and you have to take action quickly, it will grab your attention. So that's the dopamine surprise. I thought this one thing was gonna happen, something else happened instead. The second one is cortisol, which is stress, the stress hormone, right? So there's conflict there. Something hangs in the balance.

Helen (12:48.085)

right.

Yes.

Lisa Cron (13:16.61)

I thought this one thing was going to happen, something else happened instead. Something is at stake. Something is at stake. And stories are when somebody deals with a problem they can't avoid. So something is at stake. And the third one is the one that really often goes missing, especially in the business world. And that is oxytocin, which is the empathy hormone, which comes from vulnerability. There's somebody who you care about and they are vulnerable in that. And just to be really clear,

This might just get into the weeds a little bit. But that, I thought one thing was going to happen, something else happened instead. Something's at risk. There's somebody we care about. The thing that came before all that is why this thing at risk is going to mess up this person's plan, their agenda that they're stepping onto with. So it's not generic. It's not just I was walking down the street and all of a sudden, you know, I was chased by a rabid dog. I mean, that sucks. And you wouldn't want that.

but it didn't get in the way of any agenda other than, you I wanted to live to see tomorrow. That's where the story really, that's where it comes down to that misbelief and that desire. All characters enter a story with a fully formed agenda before the dark and stormy night that they get, you know, tossed into. And that part is the most important part. It's where writers screw up, it's where business screws up.

is to go, who is that person? Why do they believe what they believe? And not why in a simple declarative sentence, but what caused them to believe that? What experience in their life made them internally realize, draw a conclusion that they felt like, I'm glad I learned this when I was young, because this keeps me safe. This is what I need to do to get my needs met. Because that's going back to our wiring for one second, we're wired to come in and to

figure out how to get our needs met based on what happens into the world that we're born into. So we are a blank slate. We are tabula rasa. There is no, we're not pre-programmed. We don't have any a priori knowledge. We are looking immediately to go, what do I need to do? That's that if this, then that patterns that we're looking for. If I cry real loud, someone will give me the milk. And if you've got really horrible parents and they don't, it's like, better not cry at all because now they won't feed me. I mean,

Lisa Cron (15:36.886)

And we're thinking the problem that we all have is that we're wired to live in a world that existed about a hundred thousand years ago. So besides the fact that we're only wired to deal with what's Dunbar's number 150, right? We're wired to be able to know, put together, you know, our own social network of at most 150. It's like, you've met, if you've met 160, 151, you got to go somebody because you're not going to remember them after that. But the more

Helen (15:45.449)

Yeah.

Helen (15:52.021)

Yes.

Helen (15:58.377)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (16:05.472)

scary thing, I think, is that we're wired to live in a world that did not change, right? If you were born 100,000 years ago and you went to sleep and you woke up 75,000 years ago, you're going to wake up in the exact same world. you know, mean, there were no towns, there were no religions, there were no roads, there were no dating apps, there was like nothing. And so it made sense biologically that once you learned something when you were young, that it would be encoded as permanent as that

is the way the world is. And that's the problem we've got. We don't go, this is what my parents were or my country or my religion. We go, this is reality. And all those people who believe something else are just really, really screwed up. I'm sorry, but they are. And I hope they get a lot of therapy and join us over here in real reality. That's what I like to call the objectivity myth. We think there's an objective truth intrinsic in everything out there and meaning.

Helen (16:37.022)

Right. It is.

Lisa Cron (17:00.878)

this is the most important thing in a story and for us, because stories are about us, is that meaning comes from one place and one place only. And that is what your past experience taught you those things mean, 100%. And that's why if you're in business and you're trying to convince someone of something, the big mistake we make is we project our beliefs onto them. And we think if we give them facts, they'll unpack it, they'll read the same meaning in, they'll understand exactly what we're saying, as opposed to first looking at them and going, well, what do they believe?

You know, and the other really important thing, I mean, there's so many, but in changing someone's mind about something is realizing you are asking them to give something up that matters to them. So what are you gonna put in its place? It's really easy to think, you'll just do this other thing and it'll be fine without going, no, wait, that thing they were doing mattered to them. So if they're gonna give it up, how is it actually answering a desire that they had and didn't realize?

Helen (17:30.528)

Mm.

Lisa Cron (17:57.112)

How is it actually gonna make them feel like they're most, and I hate using this word because it's so overused, authentic self, as opposed to they have to change that to be what you think their authentic self is. And we don't do it on purpose, but it's just, you we do have this objectivity bias where we think the way we see the world is in fact the world. And it's not that.

Helen (18:03.456)

Mmm.

Helen (18:17.34)

Yes. And so what, when we're going to move on to talk about this, the content of this amazing book, because there's so much relevant stuff in here, but really, okay, what I'm getting there is that we kind of, we miss out a part of the origin story in terms of what has happened to that person to give them that view of the world.

Lisa Cron (18:23.018)

You

Lisa Cron (18:39.415)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (18:44.002)

Yes.

Helen (18:47.792)

And you talk in this book about how writers or anybody else would just start with the plot.

Lisa Cron (18:56.674)

Yes.

Helen (18:58.098)

And so when you start with the plot, you're already kind of starting with a structure of telling the story and you're kind of missing out on a lot of other things. So I'd love to explore that. And I particularly love to talk to you about this notion of the third rail, because this really struck me in this book about what the third rail is.

Lisa Cron (19:03.875)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (19:26.21)

I mean, the third rail, just before we get to that, the mistake that writers make is they think the story is about the plot. And that's why, I'm fond of saying, I've worked with writers and story, as I'm fond of saying for more decades than I want to admit to being alive. And in that amount of time, I can't tell you how many manuscripts I've read. Or if you asked me what's it about, I'd go, it's about 300 pages. I have no idea. It's just a bunch of things that happen.

Helen (19:34.248)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (19:53.966)

Because story's not about the surface. It's not about the surface world. We've all lived in the surface world. One thing every single one of us has in common is from birth to now, we have lived successfully in the surface world because we are here. We don't need help with that. We want to know what's going on beneath the surface. Story, to put it in a nutshell, story is about how somebody deals with a problem they can't avoid and something in their belief system has to shift in order for them to solve it or see it as something very different or often both.

Helen (19:53.984)

Mmm.

Helen (20:18.868)

Right.

Lisa Cron (20:23.05)

Stories about that internal change, not an external change. And that's what we come to story for, is that internal in someone's head is one of the things that the writing world, biggest lie the writing world tells is use backstory sparingly and then when the reader needs to know something. I first of all, you never put anything in any story because the reader needs to know it, not that they don't, but you put it in because the character, as you, or anybody, when we're asked to do something that we're not sure that we should do,

Helen (20:23.305)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (20:51.39)

we turn to the past to try to figure out how to solve it. And it's got all of the, I could go on and on and on about all of the layers that are there. But the third rail is that this thing that's happening in the story is forcing the person to confront a belief that they just think is the way of the world. It's something in their life taught them that. And it's worked up till now, but it's probably also kept them from getting the thing that they want. I think most stories are about

Helen (21:12.928)

Hmm.

Lisa Cron (21:19.15)

the cost of human connection, no matter what they are, boiled down to that. And now in the story, something is forcing them to dig down into that belief in order to solve the problem. My son, he put it really well, my son is a filmmaker and they were making a movie where they were bringing the screenwriter back, because there wasn't enough backstory. he said, there wasn't enough backstory, he said, because the story present makes the unconscious conscious.

didn't mean it in a Freudian, Jungian, or God forbid, Wu-Wu sort of way. He meant there are these beliefs that we have lived as if they are a fact and they've been helping us and now that's what's holding us back. And the story present forces that belief that's now deep inside us up to the surface again and we feel it. And that is, if you want to know what the through line in a story is, and this is a mistake that writers make, that the writing world, I'm at odds with the writing world.

many ways because they don't because it's all this top down all those we were saying before, Juro's journey. It's top down. The story is bottom up. Yeah. Yeah. And once I just because story isn't the through line and story isn't the plot. It's the internal evolving subjective narrative that your protagonist is using to make sense of what's going on as they are trying scene by scene by scene by scene to bring the agenda they stepped onto the page with.

Helen (22:22.709)

Right.

Yes. Let's talk about that for a minute. I'd love your views on the hero's journey.

Lisa Cron (22:49.016)

to fruition. That's what we're following. That's that Vulcan mind melt. Your protagonist is your reader's avatar. That's why in business, if you're telling a story, the protagonist is the person you're telling the story to. They are that person who has the power to make the change. But they have to realize something in order to do that. Yeah, the hero's journey. As I'm fond of saying, if it was up to me, and this is...

Helen (23:11.732)

Tell me.

Lisa Cron (23:17.942)

I used to say it before people were actually doing things like this, so I really only mean this metaphorically, it's hard to say. I would burn every copy from the much revered and deeply misogynist hero's journey, right? The Temptress, anybody? All the way up to the most popular story structure book out there now, because for one thing, it's a total misnomer. It's not story structure, it's plot structure. And it's top down. This will happen, that will happen, that will happen. Why?

Because it has to. It's like building a Jenga tower. And now you've got a character who's got to go in and they've got to hit all those plot points. Even if the motivation that they would have to do one means they'd never do the thing they got to do in chapter eight. But if they don't, think the Jenga tower, they're going to pull the little thing out and the whole thing is going to collapse. It never works. Top down, never, ever, ever works. And you're looking to make, by this time, this needs to happen.

By that time, that needs to happen. So you're manufacturing events that make things happen. But that's not what a story is about. A story is about why. That's a what. A story is about why is this person doing it. And the why always is internal and always comes from the past. And that's what you're looking for. And it's funny because I just gave a talk recently at a writer's conference about everybody's fear of AI. We're all terrified of AI. And here's the thing.

Helen (24:28.808)

Right. Right.

Lisa Cron (24:45.826)

And I asked AI, I asked at GPT itself, it gave me, if I had hours we could go into this, because it was so interesting. AI can never write effective stories, because AI inherently writes top down, inherently writes top down, because it can't write bottom up, because it has no lived experience. Without leading the story, we don't have a story. Yeah, it's only top down. It admits it.

Helen (25:05.391)

No, that's a really great point. And what? Yeah, one.

Lisa Cron (25:12.822)

No, it totally admits it. Interestingly, when it gave me, said, well, what are the tells of stories that are done by AI? How can you tell? And it gave me these four bullet points. And they were, first of brilliant. And second of all, exactly what's wrong with most manuscripts written by people, because they make these same top-down mistakes. Yeah.

Helen (25:35.978)

So this is where I guess the third rail comes in. And if anybody doesn't know, it's like the third rail of a subway, right? It's that electric, emotional electricity. And the charge comes from like a long-held desire, a misbelief that's holding them back in some way, and events that challenge that misbelief.

Lisa Cron (25:44.066)

Right. Yes. Yeah.

Lisa Cron (25:52.086)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Lisa Cron (26:00.738)

that misbelief exactly that make you, I'll give you, let me give you a very easy example from a book that probably a lot of people have read, which is The Hunger Games. So if you've read The Hunger Games at all, just love all of them, just the first book. Okay, so the external thing it's about is, is Katniss gonna survive, right? Is she gonna get to The Hunger Games? We got that. But that's not what the third rail is, or these days, like sometimes call it the driver, the internal driver. The reason we're reading that book, what we wanna know is if it,

gets to the end and she and Peta are the last two standing, will she kill him? Well Katniss killed Peta is what we are reading for. That is the driver, that is the third rail, that is what matters. It always comes back to that, that is what we wanna know. And Suzanne Collins did cheat at the end. Kind of decide, well, I think you could both survive. But up until that point, that was what we wanted because she made clear we knew, again, from backstory,

Helen (26:50.944)

Mm.

Lisa Cron (26:58.59)

that once Katniss says, I guess her sister, Prynne, she definitely would have died immediately. So Katniss is gonna go. And we know with Peta from a memory that she's got, that his family, because they were all very poor there, the 12 districts, I think, and they were the bakers and she was hungry and he was gonna throw away, like he was supposed to throw away burnt bread and he sees her and he throws her this loaf of bread and his mom comes out she's really pissed. And we know, okay, immediately.

Helen (27:12.936)

Yes. Yes.

Lisa Cron (27:26.99)

PETA would never kill Katniss, would not kill Katniss. PETA has a crush on Katniss. Let's face it, she is very slow on the uptake. It takes her very long time to realize that. But we know it immediately. So that's what we're following all the way through. That would be the third rail. That would be the driver there. Because the question is, is she going to, would she kill him if it came down to that? And we don't want her to. 100 % don't want her. We want her to f*** it up.

Helen (27:51.616)

No. What's the misbelief that's holding Katniss back?

Lisa Cron (27:58.328)

That would, would have to go back and read. is the hardest question I get asked sometimes. I can do it in movies. I can do it in all sorts of other stuff, but going back, I'd have to reread it to come up with that, with other, like for instance, I'm trying to think, what was the one I was just, God, my mind is blank. It was a recent movie where it was very obvious. Well, I mean, easy for one that people might be watching.

Helen (28:03.987)

Right.

Helen (28:07.87)

Mm. Mm.

Lisa Cron (28:26.902)

soon because it's almost Christmas and we all watch It's a Wonderful Life every Christmas. for George Bailey, it was the only way I can matter is if I leave this town and build something big. If I stay in Bedford Falls, I am nothing. And he went all the way through to realize at the end, no, that isn't true at all. I was something. And they really, get that aha moment when.

Helen (28:41.61)

Bye.

Lisa Cron (28:52.168)

He picks up the Mark Twain book at the end and Clarence is like, no man is a failure who has friends or whatever. But we knew it all the way through. That would be the misbelief. And if you look at that particular movie, there's no scene in it. There's not one that doesn't challenge, he wants to leave town, he could leave town and something happens and his integrity keeps him there because he really is a person who matters.

every time he makes that turn and stays, you know, after his dad dies, then when they're going to shut the bank down if he doesn't do it, then when he's going to, you know, gets married to Mary, but then there's the run on the bank, you know, his brother comes back and he's, you know, he's got married. And I mean, every scene goes toward, is he going to give in? Is he going to go go do this thing? He really almost takes a job with Potter, which of course he doesn't. And I'm so sorry for anybody who hasn't seen the movie because it wouldn't it wouldn't make sense. But

Helen (29:16.16)

Mm.

Lisa Cron (29:45.432)

But that would be the misbelief all the way through. It's an easy one.

Helen (29:47.914)

So I'm thinking about how this translates to my clients and to the people listening. And I think because I'm guilty, I've used a condensed version of the hero's journey to help people put their talks together and to bring the story into there. But I totally get that the story begins before page one. The story begins before. The real beginning is where the internal struggle began, not when the action starts.

Lisa Cron (30:14.797)

rate.

100%.

Helen (30:18.878)

And so for anybody listening that's thinking, okay, well, I want to tell a really compelling story that is maybe a personal journey, you know, because leadership is about vulnerability and actually sharing personal journeys is a fantastic way of testing this type of thing out because you're being vulnerable. There's a couple of notes here that for them to think about, right? So it's about what the character believes, what they believe, what they want.

Lisa Cron (30:26.957)

Right.

Lisa Cron (30:30.531)

Yes.

Helen (30:49.546)

the misbelief that's shaping their worldview and why they behave as they do in this sort of before. So like the before story, right?

Lisa Cron (30:55.085)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (30:58.732)

Right. And yes, and they I mean, when you're doing a story for business, well, it depends on if you're telling your story, then yes, you would look back for you. If you're doing it, a business story that you're writing, you're hoping it would and longer form or even an ad, you would go back. the first question is the person whose mind you're trying to change. Why don't they believe what you want them to believe? Why do they believe what they believe instead? And you have to respect

Helen (31:24.222)

Right, put it into.

Lisa Cron (31:28.908)

You can't go because they're an idiot or you can't go because they don't have the real facts. You can never do that. It's like what made them believe because a misbelief is something that they believe is true. And they feel really lucky to have learned that early in life because they feel that that has helped them go forward. And often, especially when you're trying to change someone's mind in business, it's often what hews them to their group or their tribe. people will stick with, mean, because when you're going to pull

apart one thread in somebody's belief system, often one thread pulls everything down and they're afraid that, if that gets pulled down, I'm gonna get ostracized or have to leave my group. So there's a lot that you really wanna pay attention to. Is there something that once they learn it, it does fit into their belief system? So they will not only go, my gosh, that really is more true than what I believed before, but then they become an evangelist for what you want them to believe.

Helen (32:01.31)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (32:26.124)

because they're gonna feel like the smart one, because they get to tell everybody else. But yeah, I mean, but you have to, if you're telling your own story, you have to be vulnerable. I think that's the biggest problem people have, they're afraid of being vulnerable, because we're taught not to be vulnerable from the time we're tiny. If you're vulnerable and you let people know that you made a mistake, they'll have ammunition against you, they'll look down on you.

Helen (32:29.695)

Yeah.

Helen (32:49.244)

or you get ostracized from the tribe if you stepped out of line, if you spoke up when you shouldn't with an elder. The vulnerability wasn't rewarded and so therefore, however, when it comes to this, it is really important. If we're thinking about this sort practical storytelling for someone who's thinking, right, I really want to nail this and we're thinking about, hey, look, marketing, speaking to your ideal client.

Lisa Cron (32:52.28)

Right?

Lisa Cron (32:55.81)

Right? Yeah.

Mm-mm.

Lisa Cron (33:10.84)

Mm-hmm. Right.

Helen (33:18.814)

you know, talking to your people and bringing them with you or whatever it might be, or just sharing your personal journey, which I help a lot of people do. We've got the plot, right? And the plot is what happens.

Lisa Cron (33:32.642)

Right, right, the plot is what happens to someone, that's your protagonist, that's you, and everything that happens in the plot gets its meaning and emotional weight, which is the same thing, based on how it's affecting you, given the prop, given your agenda that you stepped onto the page with and the problem that you are gonna have to deal with in order to bring that thing you want to fruition, because it's about that internal struggle. That is what stories are.

Helen (33:34.238)

and the consequence.

Helen (33:55.199)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Cron (34:02.102)

about. And then at the end, you have realized something, something in your belief system shifts, and you see the misbelief for what it is, which is something that's been holding you back. And at that point, often people turn around, what's that great T.S. Eliot quote, the end of our exploring is to arrive at where we started and to see the place for the first time. It's like, that's what that is. Or this one comes, I hope I've memorized it right, comes from, well, it was funny when I wrote a wire for story.

I had to source every quote. And this is a really famous Proust quote. But when I sourced it, he didn't actually say it in this way. It was kind of a conglomeration of other quotes. So like this is what Proust would have said if he'd been a guy, you know, had a way with words. And it was something like, you know, the true voyage of discovery isn't going to new places, but having new eyes. And that's what happens at the end of the story. You have new eyes, you see things differently. It is about that

internal change that we come to story for. And I think that's why they say the biggest evangelist, and now, and there are so many, I mean, so many QAnon-type scary things out there, is that the people who can change the minds of people who've been captured by, radicalized by this, are people who've also been there, right? They believe someone who's already been on the same journey that they were. They're not gonna believe you.

Helen (35:02.602)

Nice.

Lisa Cron (35:30.156)

Yeah, never tell anybody anything. The minute you give somebody a fact, you've made them angry. 100 % you've made them angry because you've implied that what they know is wrong. And again, that's biology. I mean, a fun fact, when somebody, because in the holidays, we're all gearing up for that, going to be around with those relatives who believe the opposite. And you know, when Uncle Jim sits you down and starts telling you why everything you believe is wrong and what he believes is right, mean, besides the fact that you're not sitting there taking it in and listening and trying to...

see if he's right or not. You you're smiling and nodding and waiting for him to stop talking so you can tell him why he's wrong and you're right. But the other thing that happens, here's a fun fact, blood rushes to your thighs in case you need to make a quick getaway. Because as far as your brain's concerned, its goal is not just to protect the physical you, its goal is to protect your sense of self, who you are, that social homeostasis, the way that you see the world.

that is what we're wired to do. And so somebody coming at you with something that is the opposite of what you believe, your brain will react the same way as if they were coming at you with a baseball bat. That same, you know, sense of I've got to get out of here. I've got to get anyway. So, yeah, so telling somebody something doesn't work. anything, what's that thing they call the boomerang effect? Like if you give someone a new fact as to why what they believe isn't true, they will come up with an equal fact that they never thought of before.

that will counter it. It doesn't work that way.

Helen (36:59.68)

And this is really important, right? Because a lot of people I work with, they share facts or what they believe like is facts. And that's important in order to be compelling and to share information. But what you're saying there is, you know, people resist facts. They make them angry because their identity is threatened in some way.

Lisa Cron (37:05.806)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (37:20.878)

Well, 100%. We have what's called, it's what Antonio de Masio calls social homeostasis. know, homeostasis, you biological meaning when any sort of a living creature is in a biosphere that's safe. Enough food, enough water, enough mates, know, the predators. It's not just that you want to stay in a balance, it's that you want to stay in that balance, because you know how. And social homeostasis is exactly that. That's why we stick with the devil we know, right? Because there might be a really cute devil out there

Helen (37:48.681)

Right.

Lisa Cron (37:50.914)

But you'd have to go into that place we were talking about before, the unknown and the unexpected, where it could be worse. So we tend to stay, when we talk about a misnomer, we stay in our comfort zone. I mean, which is usually the most uncomfortable place. It's really just what's familiar. We stick with what's familiar. And when somebody challenges it, you get that, again, that feeling of people going, I'm being emotional. That is your brain trying to protect you. As I saying before, like, it's not like your blood starts to boil. It's not like you reached over and turned up the thermostat.

Helen (37:54.324)

The unknown world, yeah.

Helen (38:20.66)

No.

Lisa Cron (38:20.716)

Your brain was doing that because it's trying to protect you and how you see yourself. And that's why I always think we can be kinder to ourselves, because we get so mad at ourselves, like, why do I do that and why did I? And it's like, no, no, no, that wasn't you. We're wired to live in a world we don't live in anymore. What started out a fever has ended up a bug. That's a fact.

Helen (38:29.364)

Yes.

Helen (38:36.669)

Right. Right. And this is so important when we're starting out and we're thinking, right, okay, I'm going to be delivering something to an audience and I'm going to think about what I want to tell them. And when we move on to your third book, which is absolutely incredible.

Lisa Cron (38:55.723)

Yes.

Helen (38:59.058)

What you're talking about here is what, know, I work with leaders day in and day out on this sort of stuff. And we must start with the audience's self narrative. We must start with their view of the world. So for you to be heard, you must make them feel heard.

Lisa Cron (39:09.774)

100%. Yes.

Lisa Cron (39:20.748)

Yeah, the truest thing I think out there is nobody listens until they feel heard. Nobody listens until they feel heard. And the last thing they want for you to explain to them why they believe isn't true and why what you believe is true. just, they will not listen. They will not hear it at all because all they're doing is that blood is rushing to their thighs and they're getting angry and they're mounting counter arguments in their head. That's what they're doing.

Helen (39:27.412)

Right? No!

Lisa Cron (39:50.742)

I just want to argue with you. You have to make them feel the truth of it by letting them experience it. mean, stories are Trojan horses, like really, truly. The change that the protagonist goes through in the story is the same change that your reader is going to go through. In fact, with novels, they've done that. They've done the fMRIs. They say getting lost in a really deep story can rewire your brain to give you more empathy.

Helen (39:59.742)

I love that.

Lisa Cron (40:15.874)

Because now you are literally experiencing something where you've looked at other people and gone, can't believe those idiots would do that. And then you're in their skin and everything that they have to deal with, you have to deal with. And it's like, whoa, that is way different than what I thought. Again, it's inside out. Story is inside out. It's bottom up, top down. And it's having the bravery to be vulnerable. That's the key thing. Most important thing.

Helen (40:33.928)

It's getting those mirror neurons to both.

Helen (40:44.264)

So if someone's listening now and they're thinking, gosh, well, I do use facts. And that's the main, my main strategy for when I present something to someone or I'm giving a talk to my people or I'm holding a town hall or whatever it might be. So if they're stuck with that at the moment and thinking, well, what else do I do then? Because I'm not writing a novel. I'm not thinking of a plot. I just want my message to land.

What can they do?

Lisa Cron (41:13.208)

Well, I I would think the first thing that they would do is they would figure out, I'm just pausing to think in terms of what it would be. They would figure out what their call to action is first. What do you want this person to do? Like, what is that one? Only one, only one, one call to action. Stories make one point, just one. And then I go in and go, why aren't they already doing what you want them to do? Why? Not.

Helen (41:33.236)

That's so important, so important.

Lisa Cron (41:42.22)

why you think, not top down why, but as far as they're concerned in their life and in their group, why are they resistant? Where is that, as I like to call it, misbelief? That thing that they believe in. And often it's not just a misbelief like, you know, I thought the world was flat and I hope you're sitting down because guess what, it's round, but misbelief in terms of how we treat each other, what I need to do to get my needs met, the way people will see. What is that misbelief and how can you create a story

that's going to make them the hero in realizing that it is a misplaced, that it is keeping them from getting what they want, what they want. So they will feel empowered to go out and do that and then be, again, an evangelist for what it is you want them to do. And it's in story form. It has to be in story form and it has to be, you have to give us a chance to feel what the character's feeling so we know what they are thinking. I mean, the biggest...

The thing is, it's not about what, it's about why. Which kills me, because that Simon Seneca came up with that, it's about why. like, I was saying that for 10 years before he ever said that. It's like, I mean, brilliant book. But it is about why. Because so often, look at all of this stuff that we accept as like common wisdom, almost always when you dive into it, it's the opposite. It's like the why or what really happened is so different than what we tend to believe simply on the surface.

Helen (42:51.551)

It's true.

Helen (43:08.691)

Mm-hmm.

Lisa Cron (43:09.238)

So you really wanna go down and what is that? Why aren't they doing it? What story could show them so they realize it? Not you telling them, but they come to the realization that to do what they need to do means that they've gotta let go of this misbelief.

Helen (43:18.389)

Hmm.

Helen (43:26.72)

It's like an inception, as you say, it's like a Trojan horse, you're kind of delivering the seed of an idea in such a way where the receiver of that idea comes to that realisation themselves.

Lisa Cron (43:31.128)

Thank

Lisa Cron (43:40.91)

Oh, 100%. As the protagonist has the aha moment, so do they. I mean, and it comes in that realization that the protagonist has, and we need to see, as I'm fond of saying, the penny drop. Meaning, we don't just want somebody to have changed their mind, you know, but we want to know how that the internal, again, the internal subjective logic shifted based on what.

What was it that opened their eyes to that? Because we are going to feel that too. Again, it is like a Vulcan mind melt is what that is. 100 % the protagonist's brain is the command center. Everything gets its meaning based on how it's affecting that person. But the most important thing, and it can be really simple, like that, I know it's an example I have in that book just that Volvo did, where they were trying to figure out

Helen (44:16.096)

You

Helen (44:26.783)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (44:37.654)

Everybody was, was it Volvo? Yeah, that they're ugly. Am I right that it was Volvo? I'm trying to think of the car manufacturer. I think it was. Anyway, also, and the thing was that cars were known as being very, very, very safe. No, it wasn't. It was Subaru, I think. It doesn't matter. I know it was one of the cars I've owned in my life and it was a bill or was it pop? Anyway.

Helen (44:47.936)

I think so. I remember seeing that.

Helen (44:54.514)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (45:04.45)

They knew that people thought they were safe, but really ugly. But they really wanted to get the safeness of it. And so they had this commercial that was just brilliant that they would show, they would come in and they would show this car that had been in an accident, which in car commercials, you never saw a car accident in a car commercial. Like, why would they do that? And it was squished. And...

Helen (45:10.932)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (45:32.078)

The cops are coming up and they've got this look because you're thinking, my God. And the other cop turns to them and goes, they lived. And you go through that all the way through people looking at this squished car and going, no, they lived. And that really got the point across because the misbelief was nobody could survive anything like that. Nobody could. Doesn't matter how safe you tell me that car is, nobody would be able to survive that. And it was as simple as just those two words. That was all the words in the whole thing.

Helen (45:51.765)

Mm.

Lisa Cron (46:01.986)

was they lived.

And it broke that feeling because they knew what the misbelief was, being that nobody could survive a car crash like that. I haven't read it in a long time, so I know the part about it being ugly. I don't remember. I know that that figured into it. Yeah. it was and it was just but you felt it because they let you sit with it. I mean, it was brilliant because a camera was coming in and you're seeing the squished car. And of course, you're thinking, my God, like nobody they're going to scrape somebody out of that.

Helen (46:16.67)

No, that is very well known about Volvo, to be honest. Yeah.

Lisa Cron (46:33.772)

And then it was just, and you could see that the person who was coming up to it was thinking what you were thinking, meaning, my God, they must have all died. And just hearing that, they lived. And then the truck driver took it to the same thing, like at the junkyard, you the guy's looking and it says again, they lived. And it's just like, I want that car, I want that car. I could live, be something awful. I want that car and I can save my family, because I don't want my family to get killed and squished in a car crash too. It was just, it was.

Helen (46:53.269)

Right.

Helen (46:59.712)

And so safety is the driving emotion.

Lisa Cron (47:02.818)

Yes, it was as simple as that. And again, was that misbelief. Nobody could survive a crash like that. that, anyway.

Helen (47:12.896)

That's a good example because I think people find it difficult to think of the component parts of, if I'm going to tell a really good story, what must the component parts be? I just want from the final part of our conversation, bring it back to the audience here that are listening and ones that are so wedded to data and just feel like data is an identity and a personality in terms of how they share information because they're

technical people, they talk in tech, tech, so therefore people receive things in tech. And actually, you know, if I lead with story, what's going to happen, you know, because the people in this audience are used to data, you know, but actually it's about giving it a go and seeing exactly what happens, right?

Lisa Cron (47:47.374)

right.

Lisa Cron (48:01.806)

Yeah, and often they're not. mean, they say that it's, I mean, if you're preaching to the choir, then keep preaching in exactly how you're preaching. It doesn't matter. If everybody is data driven and you're talking to other data driven people, they probably can unpack what you're saying. But if you're talking to somebody who isn't that, or you don't know if they are, and you want to pull them in, because the other problem with talking to people who are data driven and you're just giving them more data, they're going to argue with you.

Anytime you say anything, going to have the data to turn around and receive everything you're saying. Yeah, I mean, it just doesn't work that way because, I mean, it goes back to that notion of thinking that the meaning of the data is intrinsic in the data itself, as opposed to people, first of all, even if they can unpack it, the meaning they're going to read into it is going to be opposite. It can often be opposite. right.

Helen (48:33.758)

is it's fact, right?

Helen (48:54.622)

What's the story behind that?

Lisa Cron (49:00.094)

And by the change you want them to make, mean, it's really, really understanding what that is and understanding what in their opinion that misbelief is that they it's keeping them from believing it, the truth that you want them to see and then creating something, a situation that causes the protagonist to have the realization that the misbelief is holding them back. And that's what transforms how they see things and it transforms what they what they do.

And in any story, there's one person who's the protagonist and they're going to experience that conflict. if you're trying, especially if it's any kind of an ad, that is your audience is the protagonist is a stand in for your audience. So they're going to experience it. You want one unavoidable problem, just one external conflict, one problem that they can't avoid. And if they do avoid it, their life would be awful. So they could walk away from it, but then they would be poor for the rest of their life or something. So it's going to have a consequence regardless.

Helen (49:40.274)

Yes. Yes.

Lisa Cron (49:57.218)

And that would spur that internal struggle, that misbelief versus truth that they're trying. That's a core conflict of any story is that misbelief, which comes in the form often of memories of what happened to somebody that made them believe that, of where that came from. So you've got that, you've got that core belief and that leads to, again, one aha moment. You can only make one point in a story. People often want to make a lot. If you make a lot, we won't know which one you're making and we won't pay any attention. One.

Helen (50:22.196)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (50:27.118)

one aha moment and that's where that realization is, that's where your story makes its point, is in that realization. That is what they're feeling and they will feel that resulting emotion that you want them to feel, whether it's empowered, it should be empowered, something positive, right? Something that they're wanna take forward because they can solve the problem and they take action. That is that transformation. And the truth is they often realize, I don't know why always comes back to this movie, although we're about to,

Helen (50:51.552)

for mention.

Lisa Cron (50:57.326)

When Monday we're about to see the second half of Wicked, I cannot wait. But coming back to The Wizard of Oz, right? And what they realize is at the end, like Dorothy with those shoes, is that they always had the power to solve the problem. They have the power to do it. They can do it. It makes them powerful. And now they can go and again, be an evangelist for what you're doing. Although I have to say, at the end of that movie, when Glinda tells Dorothy that she could have always gone home, because she had, I would punched her.

Helen (51:23.968)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (51:25.512)

It's like, you me to do all that? And I could have just tapped my heels together and gone home. Like, thanks a lot. But anyway, she had to re-

Helen (51:31.9)

She says, you've always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.

Lisa Cron (51:35.502)

I don't want to do this.

Exactly. that's what stories do. I they are simulations. But you have to understand where the person was coming from. mean, in a novel, you spend a ton of time going back and creating all that for your protagonist and your other characters with a story for the business world. You're looking at who's your target audience and what is really keeping them from hearing what you want them to hear. And again, it's respecting that too.

Helen (51:45.332)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (52:07.214)

Because it's so easy to want to, you know, I remember back in the day, I think I mentioned in the book that, you know, in this country and they, people on the right had signs that said, you know, keep your government hands off my Medicare. And it's like, well, you do understand that Medicare is a government program. So it's like government takes its hands off it, you won't have it. I don't think that's what you mean. But they meant something else, right? They meant something else. They didn't trust the government because the government was taking taxes away from them and giving it to people who they felt didn't deserve it. And that's why they were angry.

So you gotta dig down to what that real meaning is, the real reason.

Helen (52:42.706)

Yeah. And if nothing else, know, if people are thinking, gosh, I'm overwhelmed with all this. Think of the third rail. that's like, there's like any takeaway from this, it's understanding that electricity that is driving.

Lisa Cron (52:48.28)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (52:54.648)

Right. The emotion, third rail is the emotion. have to feel it. has to cost. Another way to look at it, just say, it costs them something to make this choice. Think of it, as I say to writers all the time now, where's the blood? There must be blood, meaning they have to feel something. You are going to force them to give something up in order to do the thing that they're doing. And you need to be aware of that too, because it's so easy to go with that thing you're doing now. It's no big deal. This is better.

Helen (53:15.882)

Yeah.

Lisa Cron (53:23.182)

And as far as they're concerned, yeah, no, it's not. Do you want to, I don't have to, but I can give you that example, before this we were talking about, because this, let me give you a quick example. And this came from, I was scrolling through Twitter, back when it was Twitter, and I came across someone, I think he was a business coach, right, he was a business coach, was advocated strategic storytelling in business, that's what he did. And his formula was,

Helen (53:31.688)

Yes.

Lisa Cron (53:53.198)

Context, characters, conflict. Which is like, yeah, okay, but what does that mean exactly? So then, and this guy said, he said, I just came across a story that makes this point. And he said, here is one great example of a CEO, of a story a CEO developed to motivate his team. Okay, so here's what was there. My wife and I are remodeling a home we thought had great potential, but it needed more work than we originally thought. We needed to tear it down to the studs and rebuild.

I'm going to pause there because that's the story. It's like, that is not a story. That is a bunch of things. I mean, if anything, that's a humble brag, right? And then he went on and he said, the whole experience reminds me of our work in consumer-focused business. It was wonderful five years ago, but now suffering from deferred maintenance. When we're done fixing it, we'll feel great because we're all in it together. I share this story, what story? Because I want us never to give up on making our business better, no matter how hard it may seem today.

I mean, most people were sitting there trying to remember what they needed to get in the market and they were annoyed because again, it's a humble brag and the two have nothing to do with each other, meaning that they had to tear it down to the studs. Here's where the story I think they could have told, in my opinion. And that would have been, my wife and I thought we'd found our dream house. It was perfect. Sure, it stretched our budget, but it was worth it. We bought it thinking it was move-in ready. Then we found out it wasn't.

Turned out it not only needed work, but we'd have to take it down to the studs. I felt like such an idiot. It had seemed so perfect, I hadn't even thought to do necessary due diligence. I was tempted to walk away. But then I realized if we rebuilt it, it might be even better than we'd imagined. So sure, we tightened our belts, but it was starting to feel kind of exciting. My wife loved the idea. We all pitched in, my wife, my kids, and believe it or not, in the end we created a home that's even better than the one we'd imagined.

But even more important, the whole experience brought us closer. And then he could go on and say, the experience reminds me of our work at a consumer-focused business. Sure, on the surface, our business looks great, but beneath it, it's like that house. It's suffering from deferred maintenance. We've just been so wrapped up in our day-to-day jobs, we haven't seen it. See, he wasn't shaming them there. It was like, we're at the place where if we don't rebuild, like that house, it might fall apart. Sure, rebuilding it might be hard and time consuming.

Helen (55:59.742)

Yeah. Yeah.

Helen (56:06.304)

Yeah.

Helen (56:12.288)

Yeah, I

Lisa Cron (56:20.514)

But the good news is if we do, not only will our business be better, but because we'll all be in it together, we'll be an unbeatable team. Now we're all together. That's the kind of story that you want to tell. The other isn't a story. The guy, again, humble brag, no blood, didn't admit to any vulnerability. It's hard to see what even the point was. It's like, okay, you bought a house and you had to take it down to the studs. So what? Like, why are you telling me this?

Helen (56:29.042)

Mm-hmm. Now, now we come. Yeah.

Helen (56:46.394)

Yeah. This is a really good example because this sort of thing happens all the time when we say, use metaphor, use metaphor to draw parallels, right? And on the surface, that's great. But if you are explaining it as the first rendition of that, you know, it lacks all the things the story needs to really connect. Whereas that version that you told, those elements that you included of

Lisa Cron (57:07.611)

Helen (57:15.186)

of the struggle and the strain of the misbelief of the third rail. I could feel it in there of the vulnerability that he shared and then the aha and the transformation at the end, including all of this.

Lisa Cron (57:21.038)

you

Lisa Cron (57:28.022)

Exactly. And it gave them blood. mean, meaning it gave them something beyond just, look at this lovely house. It brought them together. And the same thing here, they'd be an unbeatable team. So now it's about us all working together, not about all of the other stuff. I mean, yeah, the problem with metaphor, and writers have the same problem, is that often it's just a fancy way of saying the same thing. Like in the story, they'll go, somebody cried or...

Helen (57:35.102)

Right.

Helen (57:44.222)

Yeah.

Helen (57:50.951)

It is.

Lisa Cron (57:54.318)

know, somebody's shed tears that look like diamonds in the light and blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, so what? They cried. I already knew that. Like, why are you telling me this? Yeah, yeah.

Helen (58:00.756)

What's the point? What's the point of that? Yeah. What's the point of putting that in there? And I think that's a really good thing to end on because, you know, I've done a lot of workshops where I've said, you know, bring in, bring in a metaphor as a symbol, an identity to use as a description in what you're saying. But it has to have these elements. We've got to look at this in the nuanced way. And you've provided some

really great points here that I just know my listeners are going to absolutely love. And I'm so grateful for your time Lisa. You know, I read your first book quite some time ago and my friend Andy told me about your book, Andy Storch, he's in this world as well. He told me about your book, which I read a while ago. More recently, I've read these two. I highly recommend all of your books to the listeners.

Lisa Cron (58:29.25)

Yeah.

Helen (58:54.01)

And if anybody wants to find out more about you or get in touch, where can they find you?

Lisa Cron (59:01.518)

Just at my website, which is wired for story wired for story.com. I mean, yeah, I'm not on social media at all So yeah, it would just I'm seeing but yeah, I just couldn't after I loved Twitter I loved Twitter, but once it came X it was like, yeah, that's done so

Helen (59:05.257)

Cool.

Helen (59:09.47)

Good shout.

Helen (59:14.718)

Helen (59:18.0)

Yeah. Well, Lisa, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. It's really inspired me and buzzed me up. I just love this topic. So thank you so much.

Lisa Cron (59:26.912)

Yay! It was fun! was so much fun! Me too, me too. My utter pleasure.

Helen (59:34.656)

Thank you.