[00:00:00] Intro: We’re saying goodbye to the rigid numbers and strict budgets, and putting relationships back at the heart of personal finance. This is more than a podcast. It’s an invitation to reimagine your money story and journey with us through a landscape of intuitive strategies and abundance. Join a community that nurtures transformative financial mindsets.

[00:00:25] Welcome to Intuitive Finance. I’m your host, Dylan Bain.

[00:00:36] Dylan Bain: Ladies and gentlemen, my guest today is Kymberlee Weil. She is the founder of Storytelling School and somebody that I have had the absolute pleasure of working with over the last couple of years.

[00:00:47] Crushing it: two words with unlimited potential and possibility, and that describes the life path of Kymberlee Weil. How else could somebody explain a person who holds a distinction as an NCAA Woman of the Year, a 4th degree master level black belt, MBA-educated, author of two books on technology, founder of an award-winning software company, winner of both the Association for Women in Communications Women’s Achievement Award and the Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award for Professional Services. Trainer of hundreds of TEDx speakers, improv comedy performer and instructor, international speaker and creator of StorytellingSchool.com, specializing in high stakes, short form storytelling to help thought leaders expand their influence. And we’re just getting started on who this woman is.

[00:01:34] Kymberlee’s determination to defy her own barriers fused with her unique combination of storytelling, spontaneity, and strategy, and has resulted in a powerful communication approach that has drawn the likes of CEO, celebrities, high net worth individuals, influencers, and entrepreneurs, the world over. I cannot speak more highly of Kymberlee and her work. I am so excited to have this conversation with her and I’m know that you’re going to get a ton of value out of it. So without further ado, let’s get to the interview.

[00:02:04] Kymberlee, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:06] Kymberlee Weil: Thank you.

[00:02:06] Dylan Bain: I am so excited for this interview, and I have to tell you that the, like, number one thing that attracted me to your work was your focus on story. I love stories. I think they’re super impactful and powerful, but I would like you as an expert in the story space to tell me, what do you see as the power of stories?

[00:02:28] Kymberlee Weil: Oh, Dylan, so good. There’s so much here. We do have 10 hours, right? For my answer?

[00:02:34] Dylan Bain: 100%. If this goes 10 hours, I’m all in.

[00:02:37] Kymberlee Weil: That’s awesome. Well, let’s start here. Story is the fastest way to build trust between two humans. So if you think about it, there’s no faster way to build trust than story. And let’s go deeper there. So, when we tell a story, we get to know how someone thinks, what their values are, how they see the world, what matters to them. And this is incredibly important for building trust so that we build connections, so that we can develop relationships, so that we can do business together, we can build friendships, relationships, all kinds of things.

[00:03:19] And it all starts with the ability to tell a great story. And as a human race, we’ve been telling stories for over 100, 000 years, yet we’ve only had written language for about 10,000 years or so. So we’ve been telling stories as a human race longer than we’ve had written language. It’s in our DNA. We are hardwired to tell stories. And because of that, as a human experience which cuts across cultures which cuts across geography, it allows us to connect to that other human in a way that is so unique compared to any other way to do that. Plus, I will say one more thing and then i’ll take a breath, which is I believe storytelling is like a superpower for humans. And with that superpower, that power of being able to tell an effective story, we can drive results. We can influence outcomes. We can affect change in our world, all by choosing to tell a great story.

[00:04:31] Dylan Bain: Oh, amazing. I love that answer, that it is this powerful connection piece, because I feel like we’re in a societal place where we were missing connection. And we’ve offshored all of the storytelling to Hollywood and obviously podcasts and other things like that. But the ability to connect ourselves to this whole human enterprise, I think, is just huge.

[00:04:56] And so I love, you know, talking about the connection. When people are telling stories, what is the connection piece that you see that really becomes that focal point?

[00:05:06] Kymberlee Weil: Sure. There’s so much here to Dylan. First of all, if I share a story with you about a time in my life where I overcame a huge obstacle, perhaps in my own true story, my own true life. I overcame the obstacle of, let’s say, a time where I was playing sports and I used to be a softball pitcher, fast pitch softball pitcher. And so I might tell you about a time in my life where we were losing a game and something happened and we came around to win a game. Well, you might not be a softball pitcher or even know anything about softball. But what you will relate to is that comeback, that ability to get above and beyond that obstacle, whatever it is.

[00:05:52] So a great storyteller will have the ability to transport the audience so that they see themselves in the storyteller’s story. And that goes into kind of another area, which is as storytellers, I believe it’s our responsibility to know our audience so that our stories are relatable. If I’m in front of a military audience, I might use certain stories. If I’m in front of a group of entrepreneurs, I might pick other stories. If I’m in front of a group of women, I might pick other stories. And I’m not stereotyping, but instead, I’m understanding how can I serve them? What do they need? How can I connect with them? How can I share a story where they can see themselves inside of my story?

[00:06:39] Dylan Bain: Oh, amazing. I think that’s a really important point to say, like, you have to tailor to your audience. And I think about like with my kids and all the stories and how I try to teach them and raise them. But then also like in the finance world of people, the certain stories they tell themselves that I hear really frequently, like, oh I heard this thing that Warren Buffett said, or this story Warren Buffett said, and I’m like, but you are not Warren Buffett. What about the guy who is in your same position? What about. Something where you’re not starting from a place of a billion dollars? I love that because I feel like those stories are — might be important to us, but it’s all about the other person on the other side, isn’t it?

[00:07:18] Kymberlee Weil: Yes, thank you for that distinction. And I want to double down on this because a lot of times — again, as speakers, as storytellers, as thought leaders, we think, okay, I’ve got this time in my life where I overcame this huge obstacle. I’m going to tell this story because I’m supposed to tell the story. So here is the story world. When instead, when we ask ourselves, how can I serve? What do they need? What does my audience struggle with? Or what does my audience need help to see even more clearly? And how can I choose a story from my life, from my experiences that will help them connect to that content even deeper?

[00:08:01] Because let’s face it. You tell me a story, Dylan, of something that I have zero connection with whatsoever, I might tend to, I don’t know, just doze off or, you know, let my mind wander. But instead, if you tell me a story of something that we share in common, like values or like a perspective or an insight or a point of view, now you have my attention even if it’s not the exact same story — going back to my softball example. But we both share those values so I can find myself inside that story.

[00:08:39] Dylan Bain: Yeah, well, I love your softball example, and I’ll tell you why. Because I’ve never played softball. I didn’t even play baseball, but I was a competitor. I was a competitor in high school as a competitor in college. I have been down on points coming up on time and have pulled it out of the fire. It’s so easy for me to understand the nerves and like, how your stomach’s in knots and the sweat and the bullets and the feelings of self-confidence that you’re shoving away like, no, I can do this. Like I can see myself in that story, which makes your presence so magnetic. And I feel like that’s the true to me. That’s where like, I love the story. I love the spectacle. I love the connection and I love not feeling alone. I love feeling like we’re in this common human space. That’s really beautiful and connecting and very much missing in today’s world.

[00:09:33] Kymberlee Weil: Yes, it’s so missing in today’s world, and I feel like as long as we are on purpose with our stories, as long as we are thinking about the audience rather than ourselves, it’s going to go fine.

[00:09:48] And a lot of times I know as speakers and storytellers, we’re like, okay, so how’s my hair or, you know, what’s going on with my, outfit or, you know, we’re so focused internally. And that’s not the game. The game is, again, I call it positioning it outwards. So think about them. Think about your audience. What did they need? Who cares about your hair? Let’s look at how — are they sitting forward? Are they looking at you intently? Do you have their attention? Their undivided attention, right? So these are the things that we want to look at to test if our stories are landing.

[00:10:26] Dylan Bain: Amazing. I’ve been thinking a lot about that in just in how I position myself in the market about the audience. And I had a friend, he was — he’ll be on the podcast, the week after you. He always tells me restaurants fail when the chef makes what they like to eat, not what their clientele is looking for. As I’ve been going through my own story arsenal and looking and be like, these are stories I love, but why do I love them? Because I want to be admired for them because I want people to be in awe of me. There’s an ego component. But when I ask, like, what’s the gift for the audience? What’s the thing that they’re going to feel? All of my stories have been changing lately.

[00:11:03] And so I would love your thoughts on that iterative process, because I feel like, you know, you hit it right on the head. People are so concerned with the arts and crafts. Is my hair right? Which for me is obviously a big concern.

[00:11:16] Kymberlee Weil: I can understand.

[00:11:17] Dylan Bain: Exactly. There’s way too much curl in it today. You know, is my hair right? Is the lighting right? Is, you know, do I have the right microphone or the right camera versus am I telling that right thing? So what is the iterative process here in your opinion as the storytelling expert when somebody’s like trying to refine this process?

[00:11:36] Kymberlee Weil: Sure. A couple things come to mind, Dylan. First of all, success equals consistency over time, which equals results. So if you want to achieve that success, consistency over time equals results. And this was actually in my dojo for years and years, this huge sign over our dojo wall.

[00:11:57] What I really take this to mean is, the more that you are willing to experiment, the more that you’re willing to try, the more that you’re willing to test, the more that you’re willing to play, the more that you will become a stronger storyteller. Because you’ll know what lands and what doesn’t. You’ll know what really captures the audience’s attention and keeps them on their seat. And you’ll also know when they’re looking at their watch or looking at their phone, right? So the more that we are willing to fall in love with practice, fall in love with that behind the scenes part of storytelling, the stronger and the more effective we’re going to be when the spotlight’s on us.

[00:12:39] Dylan Bain: I love that. I feel like there’s a lot of focus on perfectionism sometimes that happens in these things where — your example of them looking at the watch. When I was in graduate school and I was just studying accounting, nothing — everything was accounting. And I realized I needed something to stay sane. So I went over to a coffee shop and they were having a storytelling contest. And I was like, I don’t know what this is about, but I’m getting up on stage. And I remember looking out at the audience as I’m telling my story. And I saw someone look at their watch and I was like, well, I got to ham it up.

[00:13:08] And so I just acknowledged that and just went with it. And it turned out to be like my thing, like my stories. I would engage the audience. I would point to people. I talked to people and that’s eventually what the audience started to expect from me. But I feel like there’s a lot of people where they’re going to look at that and be like, oh my God, I’m bombing. And in some levels, you know, what is your opinion when you just get up there and it’s just, it goes so poorly and you don’t know what to do?

[00:13:31] Kymberlee Weil: Yeah, there’s so many things here. First of all, if you treat it as an experiment, right? Experiments don’t always go well. So you learn from it. And so you can ask yourself, when am I taking away from this? What went well? Here’s something that, you know, you and I’ve talked about, which is in the military world, it’s called the After Action Review. But I’ve adapted it sort of to do an assessment, a self assessment on any time we do something, which is what went well, what went wrong, what needs work?

[00:14:02] And so you can look back at that time, okay, maybe it didn’t go as great as you wanted it to go. All right. What went wrong? Did anything, was anything a disaster? Maybe not. Maybe you have nothing that went wrong. Okay, what went well? Let’s celebrate for a moment the things that did go well, because there’s always at least some things that went well.

[00:14:23] And then what needs work? Here are your areas to focus on. And when you allow yourself to look at your performance, your delivery, your entire presentation in that way, you will find gifts in that because you will be able to see. Oh okay, I can see where I can make a change there. I can see where I was on a bit of a tangent there. I need to trim it down, right? And so we can refine to your earlier point about iteration is the more that we’re willing to play and test and try, the more we can really dial in our stories.

[00:15:00] Dylan Bain: I love that the experiment. One of the things I always tell people in the financial world is like, when you start this process, you’re going to make mistakes. And something that you have to didn’t go back and ask yourself, like, what worked here? How do we twist the knob and just be really clinical? Not critical is the phrase I use with that, you know, come at it and, you know, there’s no need for the judgment, which just, okay, how do we train? How do we get better?

[00:15:24] I am interested to know, just in that place, you know, how does a storyteller become more quick on their feet, right? Like, I think we’ve all, like, a big freezing point for me is getting up there and being like, what if I forget what to say? What if, I do — I forget the next word or, the comedic pause that I’ve planned or whatever. What can make somebody more quick on their feet so that they can as you know, going back to your softball story, pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

[00:15:51] Kymberlee Weil: Sure. Well, this is where improv, I believe — improv comes in incredibly handy. And speaking to also your last point, Alan Irwin, who was my improv mentor, he always says prepare, don’t plan. And what that means is do the work behind the curtain. Do the work, test it, try it so that when you’re on stage, you can let it go and trust. And that’s hard. It’s hard to do a lot of times to your point of like, oh, what if I forget my first line or my first paragraph. But if you follow some of the simple rules of improv, which I’ve trained in many years, you’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.

[00:16:34] And one of the things improv teaches us is these beautiful magical words called “Yes, and,” which means acceptance and addition. And in the improv world specifically, what it means is if I’m going to start off a scene and my scene partner is going to come in and let’s say, I start off a scene and I think I’m in a kitchen washing my hands, and my scene partner comes in and they’re on a spaceship and I’m thinking, okay, now what do I do? They’re in a spaceship. I’m in a kitchen. These two worlds don’t work. Unless you’re in improv. And that’s where the “yes, and” — I have to yes that spaceship and add to it. So I might say, okay, we gotta wash our hands before, you know, we hit the moon because we wanna be, cleanliness. We wanna be cleanly when we land on the moon. I don’t know. I’m making this up. But, we wanna make those two worlds work in some crazy way.

[00:17:29] And when you start to train your brain in the “yes, and” way, no matter what goes wrong on stage, no matter what happens, there’s always a yes and to it. You can acknowledge it. That’s the “yes” part. And the “and” means add detail to it. So if you let God forbid you’re on stage, you freeze and you don’t know what you’re going to say next, or you don’t know what you’re going to say at all, you can do a couple of things.

[00:17:53] One is move your body in any direction. A lot of times if we just move our body, that switches our cellular makeup and all of a sudden the ideas come rushing back. It’s a weird thing that happens, but I’ve seen it again and again with speakers I’ve worked with. Over the world. This works. It’s just taking a step in any direction.

[00:18:16] Another thing you can do again, people come to me a lot asking this question. What if I freeze? It’s one of the biggest fears and speaking, which is do my “drink of water” trick, which is you can just say, “Excuse me one second,” and go ahead and take a drink of water, then come back. And by the time you come back, the ideas will be there. So it’s just giving yourself space to sort of re-anchor and realign. And audiences will wait for you, you know. Speaking for many people is really scary. It’s one of the most scary things that a human can do for many people. It’s more scary than spiders. And I mean, there’s all kinds of studies that have been done on this, and so just recognize that your audience is there for you. Your audience doesn’t want you to fail. Your audience wants you to succeed. So they’ll wait for you.

[00:19:10] Dylan Bain: Oh, that’s amazing. I love the way you framed it, ’cause I was thinking and seeing myself in the story, my very first presentation to a C-suite, I got up and I’m doing my presentation. And the CFO asked me a question I wasn’t ready for. And in my head, I panicked and I did without knowing what I was doing, your “drink of water” trick, except mine was to repeat the question back to him and then tell him it was insightful while I thought of what to say, and the partner told me, he’s like, wow, that was, you handled that really well. And I was like, I had no idea what I was doing.

[00:19:43] And so, like, when you’re talking about improv, I can see the applications in the business world very clearly. But I also feel like there’s applications in a lot of other places to like within a marriage or within a partnership or with kids, right? Where you’re having a conversation with somebody and they come in and like, you clearly are misaligned, but you can accept where they’re at and accept where you are at. And then find that common ground to move the whole story together. I absolutely love that.

[00:20:10] Kymberlee Weil: 100%. And so let’s look at this deeper Dylan, like, let’s take a negotiation, for example. Let’s say you and I are in a negotiation, and you have a very different opinion, a strong opinion than I have. And I have a very strong opinion on my side. And instead of saying like no butting you, which is what we call an improv, “no, but” like no, I don’t agree, but we need to do this instead. That is shutting you down, which never feels good to anyone. And also, it makes me a bit of a jerk in a way of handling it in that way.

[00:20:45] When instead, I can “yes, and” you. So I can say something like, here’s the, yes, I understand you have a different point of view here. That’s the yes. And I would like to offer you a slightly different idea. And now. Here we go. And I’ve given myself the floor to share my idea. You may not agree with that idea, but at least you’re hearing it. And you can, “yes, and” me back and say, yes, I see that you also have a different opinion there and a different point of view. And what if we combine our two ideas, blah, blah, blah, and now we’re off and running. And so in a negotiation, this can really be powerful when two parties are very coming from a very different place.

[00:21:32] Dylan Bain: I love the way that you brought up the negotiation tactics, simply because I feel like there’s a lot of people when you say, oh, I study improv for business, that what they hear is this, oh, I just play around. I’m not really serious. They don’t see the applications. But what you’re doing with Storytelling School and bringing in the improv is so much more powerful than that. You know, I imagine that you’ve probably have been in improv situations with some fairly powerful people, or am I completely off base on that?

[00:22:03] Kymberlee Weil: You are on base and then some. I feel like improv is life and life is improv, right? So all let’s break this down to, you know, for people who are listening are like, what exactly is improv?

[00:22:14] So improv is simply, it stands for improvisational comedy. And it’s comedy without a script. So there is nothing to memorize. There is no official words that we need to say there. It’s driven. There’s short form improv, which is very game driven. That’s like the show “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?”, which you may have heard really fun fast games. And there’s long form improv, which is, I think of it as a play coming to life in the moment. And there’s a lot of different styles of long form improv as there is short form improv.

[00:22:50] But basically, from a practice, it is comedy without a script. And by training yourself to be vulnerable, by training yourself to trust yourself, I think so many of the skills that I’ve learned through improv apply to business a hundred percent. I use them all the time.

[00:23:12] Like here’s an example that mirrors storytelling in improv — and improv were often taught in a scene to start in the middle. Which means in improv, when I come out on stage and my scene partner or partners come out on stage, you don’t, as an audience, want to hear a long backstory of where these characters came from and how they got into the forest in the first place. You don’t care. You want to know what’s about to happen in the forest, right? And so in storytelling, it’s the same thing. We as storytellers, we don’t need to come bring that baggage of the whole long backstory. Instead, start your story in the middle. Start it right in the moment in time where something just happened. Take us into that place. That’s where we want to hear the story.

[00:23:59] And it reminds me of my very first improv experience. So I tricked my husband into actually taking improv classes, which is a story in and of itself. But anyway, by the time I started training in improv for a while, and it was time for my first show, and I’m so excited about this first show, my first time being on stage and performing. And I invite no one because if things go wrong, I don’t want anyone to see, I don’t want any evidence of what goes wrong. So I do not invite any family. I don’t invite any colleagues. I don’t even invite any friends except for one. I invite one friend named Steve from Baltimore, and he has a background in comedy so I feel like he’s going to get it.

[00:24:43] Okay. So I’m backstage. The show’s ready to go, ready to start and the announcer’s announcing us and I’m backstage, and I peer out of the curtain and I see Steve sitting dead center in the front row. And I’m thinking, alright, he’s there. This is great. This is gonna be great. I’ve got this. Everything’s gonna be fine.

[00:24:59] Alright, so the show begins and I go out on stage. My scene partner goes out. We do a bit. And I look over at Steve and he’s not smiling. He has his arms crossed over his chest and he has like a grumpy look on his face. And I’m thinking, okay, all right, so I go back behind the curtain and a couple more, scenes go by with other players, and I’m thinking, okay, that didn’t go well, but I go out again and I try it again. And I’m out with my scene partner, and I nail it, and I look over at Steve, and he still has his arms crossed over his chest, and he’s got this really not interested look on his face.

[00:25:34] And this goes on 10 minutes into the show, 20 minutes into the show, finally 30 minutes into the show I Freak out because clearly i’m a disaster. This is a disaster. So I start apologizing to everyone backstage, all my scene partners, and I’m saying, look I will never do improv again I’m, so sorry. I’m a disaster. This is terrible and they’re like, Kymberlee would just focus on the show please.

[00:26:00] So after the show ends and I go up to Steve. I make a beeline for him and I just basically, follow my story and I say, Steve, I’ll never ask you to come to an improv show again because I’m never going to do another improv show. I know I’m terrible and I’m so sorry I made you sit through this. And he says, what are you talking about? And I said, no, I was so bad. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was so bad. He’s like, oh my god, you are hilarious. When’s your next show? You should definitely do this.

[00:26:30] And then it hits me. Steve is a criminal defense attorney from Baltimore, and so he is taught to not show any emotion whatsoever. And that entire experience taught me a lesson that I continue to live my life by, which is as speakers, as storytellers, we can’t control our audience’s face, yet we can control how we make them feel. And I think this is such a missing component in storytelling and speaking in general, because it goes back to Dylan. What we were talking about earlier is knowing your audience. And we can, as speakers and storytellers, we can influence how they feel. And I knew I wanted to be funny. I wanted to entertain him. And I did. I can’t control that he has a face of steel, but what I can control is how he felt and that it was memorable for him. And he really enjoyed himself, I found out later, unbeknownst to me in the moment.

[00:27:35] Ad: Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to take a real brief pause in the interview, and I’m going to make a request. Please leave me a five star rating review wherever you’re getting your podcasts. This year is going to be huge for us, and I would really like to grow the followings and I’m asking your help to do it.

[00:27:49] If anything I’ve put out on Facebook, on Instagram, and especially on this podcast has touched you, moved you, or helped you advance your life in any way, shape, or form, please do me this one simple favor. Stop what you’re doing. Leave me a rating review wherever you’re getting podcasts.

[00:28:04] Without further ado, let’s get back to the interview.

[00:28:10] Dylan Bain: Oh my god, I — this story of the, of a criminal defense attorney who’s got his court face on is my favorite thing ever for a first time comedy show. I feel like that’s — there’s so much there, whether you’re getting ready to go talk to a girl for the first time or you’re worried about, you know, well, what if I make a mistake in this presentation? Like you’re the only one who’s going to know and the feedback you’re getting, so long as it isn’t explicitly negative is probably positive.

[00:28:36] Kymberlee Weil: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And just, you know, so many of us is like, we don’t know what’s going on with our audience. I’ve been in many a speaking event myself where I’ve spoken and even gotten standing ovations. And yet there’s those people in the front row or in a couple rows in who are not smiling the whole talk, and they are the people who stay and wait to talk to me afterwards and tell me how this talk changed their life and all these things, right? But you wouldn’t know it to look at their face.

[00:29:08] Dylan Bain: So amazing.

[00:29:09] Kymberlee Weil: Everybody listening, please be aware of your face when you’re an audience member, okay? Another lesson.

[00:29:15] Dylan Bain: I just feel like these are our lessons that are so applicable. And this is what I found when even just bringing interview guests on the podcast of like, there are so much good knowledge to be had in so many different places. And I loved your story because I remember back when I was in sales, I gave a presentation to an accounting firm where everybody there was like the stereotypical humorless accountant. And I got done with it. And I told the owner, I was like, yeah, I thought it went well. And he was like, oh, are you kidding? This was the best presentation we’ve ever had. I mean, it was one note came out of this guy’s mouth. And yet it was a really great opportunity for me to learn some of that lesson. And I think for so many people, that’s their nerves will get the best of them.

[00:30:00] Kymberlee Weil: Yeah. I mean, in my case too, I was focusing internally. I was like, Oh, I’m bad. I’m destroying this situation. I, you know, when actually if I was just maybe look at other people in the audience who were laughing and I wasn’t putting so much pressure on poor Steve from Baltimore, you know, things would have felt a little different.

[00:30:21] Dylan Bain: I love that this man’s name is Steve from Baltimore, like it’s he’s a medieval knight. Yes, it’s Steve from Baltimore.

[00:30:27] Kymberlee Weil: Oh, it is. Like everybody who all of our friends like everybody who know he is not just Steve. He’s Steve from Baltimore.

[00:30:32] Dylan Bain: That’s amazing. Well, when you said you’re really focused on yourself like, this kind of brings up the — an idea in my head of like, it’s really not about you as the speaker, is it?

[00:30:43] Kymberlee Weil: Ding ding ding! Yes, that’s — If everyone could highlight this, put it on a sticky note, understand this. It isn’t about you at the end of the day. It is about the audience. It’s about that other person. Even if this is an audience of one or an audience of one million, it is you sharing an idea, you sharing a point of view, you sharing an experience so that your audience can think differently, can have deeper insight, can act differently. And so yes, you are the storyteller, the speaker. It is your life, your stories that you’re sharing, your insights, but it really is in service to them.

[00:31:30] Dylan Bain: Well, and I feel like that’s a great way to focus any type of performance you’re doing because I — in my mind, life’s always a performance, right? You’re always selling, you’re always, you’re broadcasting your brand. Everything, you know, is part of that storytelling aspect, but remembering it’s not about you. And it’s not personal. And I know in my own life, in my own career, so often as an auditor, I walk in and I’m the bad guy. And people will take it out on me because, you know, we’re easy targets and just remember, like, it’s not about me. It’s never been about me. I’m not that important, but to that person, they are that important.

[00:32:08] Kymberlee Weil: Yeah. And I would say, I mean, the more that you can focus outwards, the more that you will be less concerned about yourself. And I think a lot of times the things that we were talking about earlier in our conversation, like freezing, not knowing what we’re saying next is focusing internally, like, okay, what’s my next line? See the keyword, my next line, how am I going to land that sentence? I, right? Instead of what did they need? Do I need to shake it up right now and move my body across the stage to, you know, draw some interest? Do I need to change my cadence, my pacing, my tone? What do I need to do in service to them?

[00:32:52] Dylan Bain: Well, tell me more about that in terms of like, the improv size of when you’re working with somebody on the stage, how is it that you’re you know what they need?

[00:33:01] Kymberlee Weil: Me as the speaker, then? Is that what your question is?

[00:33:04] Dylan Bain: Yeah, so like, let’s say that you had your scenario of like, start in the middle, right? And I love that because I’m married to a PhD-level engineer. So like, if I said, oh look, we’re in the woods. She’ll be like, well, how did we get here? Why are we here? Who in their right mind would be in the woods in the middle of night, Dylan? Like, these are conversations I would have. If you’re out there with somebody and you say, oh, we’re in the woods in the middle of night. How do you know what you need to be saying back to that person to give them what they need for the scene?

[00:33:32] Kymberlee Weil: Okay, so so much here. So there’s the improv world, and then there’s the speaking world. So in the improv world, again, we want to get to the good stuff fast. And so what the audience wants is something to happen. So not great choice would be if I’m in, let’s say, I’m in a scene where I’m writing in a book and someone comes in and they say, oh, you’re writing in a book. And I say, yes, I’m writing in a book. And they say, great. I like your book. Great. I’m writing in a book like that. The scene is going nowhere. Nothing’s happening. We don’t care. It doesn’t matter.

[00:34:11] But instead, one way is to think about the stakes, what is at stake here? So why am I writing at the book? Am I writing in the book because I’ve got a deadline of, you know, in two minutes from now? Am I writing in the book because I just came up with the answer to cancer? You know, a cure for cancer? Why am I writing in that book? So what is at stake here? And when we understand quickly what’s at stake, now we care.

[00:34:38] And so now let’s overlay this being a speaker, a storyteller. If you come out on stage and you’re talking about a bunch of facts and things again, in my brain as an audience member, I would say, why do we need to know this? Why should we care about this? Who cares about this? Why should I care about this? Why do you care about this? What’s at stake? And the more that we can get to those stakes pretty quickly, the more that we will engage the audience, yes, but the more that they will care what happens and what happens next.

[00:35:11] So ideally, going back in the world from speaking to improv and back and forth, but back to the improv world in a performance, something needs to happen relatively quickly. And what I mean by that is, you know, here I am on stage. Here’s another improv tool that you can use, which is I learned this when I was taking a class in LA, and I was on stage. And so it was a training. And in my scene, I was drinking tea as you would in a scene. So I’m drinking tea. And the instructor says, Kymberlee, stop. Make it more interesting. I’m thinking, okay, I’m drinking tea. What’s the big deal? So, okay, so I drink my tea and I slurp it. Stop, Kymberlee, make it more interesting. Like when, make it more, what else can I do? Okay, so I’m drinking my tea. Oh, okay. I spill it all over myself. Kymberlee, stop, make it more interesting. Like what the heck? Okay. So I take my tea and I throw it, my scene partner, not really, an improv way. Now something has happened. Now we have somewhere to go with the scene. We have something to work on, you know?

[00:36:13] So make it more interesting is another improvism that I now use in yes, improv, but in the business world. So for you as a speaker and a storyteller, How can you make it more interesting? How can you make this paragraph more interesting? How can you make your opening more interesting? Your closing more interesting? Your interaction with the audience more interesting?

[00:36:35] Take it into the business world. If you’re going to send an email, how can you make that email more interesting? If you’re going to negotiate with someone, how can you make that more interesting? If you’re going to surprise someone and give them a gift of some kind, how can you make that more interesting? And so, I now — all these improvisms, I programmed in my brain, so I just pull them all the time. Improv, storytelling, speaking, business, whatever it is, they apply across the board.

[00:37:04] Dylan Bain: Amazing. Well, to make it more interesting, I, as an auditor, like, I feel like I need to go into every audit shop and like, paste that on the wall.

[00:37:13] Kymberlee Weil: Yes. Do it. Do it. Dylan, do it. Make it more interesting.

[00:37:17] Dylan Bain: And I was having this conversation with my boss today. And I like my boss. But she was telling me, she was like, Oh, we want to have this really detailed chart. And I’m like, our executives have a tick tock level of, attention span here. Like we got to get them with the first two numbers, otherwise we — we’re not losing them. Like, we’re just not going to have the conversation. So I love that with the, like, what do they want? What are the stakes? How do I make it more interesting? Amazing.

[00:37:43] Kymberlee Weil: Yes. It’s and that’s, just it. I mean, you know, again, improv is life and life is improv. I talked earlier about the definition of improv, which is comedy without a script. And if we think about life, we don’t have a script. We don’t know what’s going to happen officially every single moment of tomorrow or the next day or the next day after that. So if you really live into the now, which is what improv is also all about, the now, what’s happening now in this moment, is the most important moment. How can you live fully into this moment?

[00:38:20] Dylan Bain: Amazing. Amazing. Well, I — yeah, I’m like kind of twitterpated about that very idea. What goes through my head is the people who say like, oh, I’d rather take a bullet than have to publicly speak. And you — I feel like they’re so afraid of the failure. They’re so afraid of not being interesting and you showcasing this idea of like, oh, there’s a thousand one ways I could make this more interesting. There’s a thousand little experiments I could make.

[00:38:45] I just, I love that framing so much because there’s so much permission to play that’s in that framing. And I think it’s just absolutely beautiful. If you had somebody who was to say like, okay, I would love the permission to play. I want to play now. How do they get started?

[00:39:02] Kymberlee Weil: Okay. Well, first of all, it starts, I would say with giving yourself permission to play. Rather than me giving you permission or Dylan giving you permission, it starts now. Just give yourself permission to play. Allow yourself to find whether they are moments in your life where you play, you take yourself perhaps less seriously, or moments in life where you create those opportunities for creativity and to just experiment and try and have fun. It starts there.

[00:39:33] And then I would say, for those of you who want to share your ideas in a public way, which could mean a lot of different things, right? Allow yourself, give yourself that permission to experiment and let go of perfection. Let it be a little messy. And so I’ll give you a couple of examples. Let’s say, you want to start sharing your ideas and, you want to start sharing them on social. Great. Share those ideas on social. Share your stories on social. Are they going to be perfect? No.

[00:40:09] And here’s the good news. We don’t want perfect. We don’t identify with perfect. I’m not perfect. I have never met a person, a human in my life — and I’ve traveled the world. I have not met one person who’s 100% perfect. And so knowing that because you know your audience, if you believe this like I do, if you know your audience is not perfect, you don’t need to be perfect. Because to them, that’s fake. It’s not real. It’s not real. Now, that said, I’m not talking about being sloppy, but do your best. Do your best that you can and let that be good enough. It’s the best you on that day.

[00:40:50] It reminds me of a martial arts test I was taking and we were in the dojo, and what’s customary in my martial art is you share what you’re about to do for your board breaking the next day at the test. And the whole test is going to be unknown to us, except for the three station break where we’re gonna break boards in a certain way. And there were three of us testing that day. And the first person went and said, okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do this, this, and this for my board breaks. And Grandmaster nods. And I go and I say, all right, I’m going to break two boards blindfolded over here with a knife hand attack, and I’m going to break three boards blindfolded with an elbow round over here, and I’m going to break two boards also blindfolded with a spinning back heel kick, and I’m so proud about my breaks. And Grandmaster nods.

[00:41:39] And then the third person goes, and he says, his name’s Andrew, and Andrew says, okay, I’m going to break two bricks over here, and I’m going to break one suspended brick over here, and I’m going to break another brick. And I’m going, what is going on here? And Grandmaster can clearly see this in my face. So he says, Kymberlee, in my office! Like, never a good time when Grandmaster calls you into the office. And he’s like, what is going on with you once we get into the office? And he shuts the door. And I was like, we’re all testing for the same black belt test. We’re all testing for the same test, but Andrew’s breaking bricks and I’m only breaking boards blindfolded, so I’m going to look like I don’t even belong. I have so many people coming to this test. I did invite people to this test. And so I have so many people coming and I’m going to look like a failure out there because I don’t even compare to Andrew. And he says, Kymberlee, all you need to do is compare yourself to you. Be the best you on test day. Not the best Andrew. Not the best Bill. That was the other guy testing. Just be the best you. And if the best you is breaking multiple boards blindfolded, that’s badass for you. That’s what you need to do. Andrew’s a kid. Let him break his bricks.

[00:42:50] And so that changed me, that perspective shift of what if we are just the best us on that day? So back to your question, Dylan, about how to get started. Get it out there. Experiment. Be the best you on that day, knowing six months from now, you’re going to be a better you. And you’re going to have even better stories, and more effective stories, and more honed in stories. Great. But we’ve got to experiment first in order to get there.

[00:43:21] Dylan Bain: Amazing. I like the well, this is the best version of you here right now. This is where you’re at. Yeah. If I was blindfolded, I’d imagine that I would miss the board entirely. But it reminds me of the phrase comparisons, the thief of joy of like, you know, when you have this capability, it’s amazing. And then you if you compare yourself to the person be like, Oh, I’m now no good. But you can’t like I loved how you frame that if you have to remember where you’re at and how far you’ve come and what your capabilities are.

[00:43:52] And I also love the implicit of like, you gotta get in motion. Like you’re testing for your black belt, but there’s years, maybe decades before you get to that place. And that to me is just absolutely, that’s a story in and of itself in my mind, an epic one at that.

[00:44:08] Kymberlee Weil: Yeah, 30 years of martial — actually over 30 years now, over 30 years of martial arts training. It’s crazy.

[00:44:15] Dylan Bain: Well, and if I remember right, that your original business in the storytelling world was not Storytelling School. It was Storytelling Samurai?

[00:44:25] Kymberlee Weil: It was Strategic Samurai. Yes.

[00:44:27] Dylan Bain: Strategic Samurai.

[00:44:29] Kymberlee Weil: Yes, which was a fun name. A lot of people, and even still to this day — but they used to call me their secret weapon. Their, you know, strategic samurai, you know? And yes, because probably my martial arts background, but it was that passionate obsession — I will admit it — in strategy. I’m a strategist at heart. I love, love, love strategy. And I study strategy. And the majority of the books on my walls have to do with strategy.

[00:44:58] And so, I was known sort of as that, as the secret weapon, because I worked with a lot of people for high stakes talks. So these were like TEDx talks, and people would come to me when they were already selected to do a TED or a TEDx talk or they wanted to do a TED or a TEDx talk someday. And so working behind the curtain with them, because I’ve grown up with TED, I’ve been involved with the TED community since 2003 from my software background, which is a whole different part of my life. But working with TED and really growing up with TED, I really value and honor the TED format of short form high stakes speaking.

[00:45:40] So how do you share an idea that can change the world in 18 minutes or 12 minutes? Or six minutes. How do you do that? How do you take your life’s work and condense it down into just one idea that the world needs to hear? And that’s where I love to play and help people.

[00:46:00] So in earlier on, when I transitioned from my software company into this focus, it really was that it was helping people share their voice and helping people really articulate their ideas in a very condensed way, which became and continues to be my focus and I think what I was meant to do, which is my focus on short form communications is what I call it. So whether that short form speaking in the examples I just shared or short form storytelling, how do you tell a story in three minutes, two minutes, one minute, five sentences or short form improv, which I teach and train in as well. So all of those fit under the umbrella of short form communications.

[00:46:46] And I believe that as communicators, that’s again, you know, another superpower that we have as humans because I’m building a movement of master storytellers to affect change in our world. And that is critically important to me because through this communication, we can affect change. One person on one day, if they hear a story, it can change their life or even save it. I’ve seen this happen multiple times.

[00:47:21] And so by really honing our communication skills as leaders, as thought leaders, as business owners, we can affect the change that we want to see in the world. And I know a lot of people throw around those words as just sort of, you know, okay, everybody says that, but I really believe it. I have seen cultures change within an organization just based on adopting storytelling principles. I’ve seen lives being saved because a veteran heard a story of a different possibility. I’ve heard so many different. Things that are going on in our world that we may not agree with or may not like. We can affect change if we can tell a great story.

[00:48:08] Dylan Bain: Mic drop moment. Like, I’m stunned. That level of passion in the explanation of the power of story is just, is moving. I mean, I was getting chills over here as you’re waxing poetic on the stories. I don’t even know what else to say. And I think that is probably the best place to leave this episode. ‘Cause what could we possibly say to that?

[00:48:34] Now, I know people are going to listen to this and they’re going to be like, I need more Kymberlee in my life. I’d love it. If you could tell people where to go to find you, what cool, amazing events you’ve got coming up. What opportunities do people have to get more into your work?

[00:48:47] Kymberlee Weil: Absolutely. Thank you, Dylan, for the opportunity and this has been so fun to talk to you. So a couple things. One is my website is StorytellingSchool.com. And this is not storytelling for children’s books, this is high stakes storytelling. This is stories for influence stories for change, creating change. And so that’s sort of the basis of my work is there. Whether I am working with someone, I have online courses. So this is, you know, self-study courses. Some of the people that work with me just love to get in there. I can teach you how to tell a three minute, two minute, one minute story. Like by tonight, I have an online course that does that at Storytelling School.

[00:49:30] I also work with people where we’re doing some ongoing training. Once a year, I do live training. I have an event that I’ve been doing for many, years and it’s once a year at the end of February, and it’s called Story to Standing Ovation. It’s a three-day immersive event, so that’s coming up at the end of February. That’s on the website, too.

[00:49:52] And then I work with people from time to time, one on one. I have small group trainings I do, so I would say definitely go to my website, have fun, explore around, and then reach out to me or my team. Hello@StorytellingSchool.com is a great email because I’ve got several team members on that email, so if you write you’ll get a response really fast. We pride ourselves in being responsive, and I just love to help, so I would say this: If you’re someone who wants to take your business to the next level, if you’re ready to add some communication training and framework and tools that will help you not only enhance what you do, but how you do it, I would absolutely love to help.

[00:50:41] Dylan Bain: Amazing. Ladies and gentlemen, if anything in this podcast has spoken to you, I cannot stress this enough. Don’t wait, go and check Kymberlee’s work out. Kymberlee Weil, thank you so much for coming to the podcast. It’s been a pleasure.

[00:50:57] Kymberlee Weil: Thank you, Dylan.

[00:50:58] Outro: Thanks for listening. The conversation doesn’t end here. Please share the show with friends and make sure you keep up with all the latest updates on Instagram and Threads @TheDylanBain, and dive deeper into the world of finance with me at DylanBain.com where you’ll find insights, resources, and strategies to reimagine your money story.