Storytelling in Agencies: Connect and Inspire with Jeff Bartsch

One of the show’s favorite guests return! Jeff Bartsch is a visionary storyteller and founder at Story Greenlight. Through Story Greenlight, Jeff and his team empower experts and professional advisors to tell their stories, serve more clients, and expand their impact in the world. On this episode Joey and Jeff discuss the power of storytelling as a tool for communication, both internally and externally, for agencies. They explore different story structures and tools for effective storytelling. Jeff introduces the "ABT" (and, but, therefore) tool, which serves as a foundational tool for setting up any kind of communication. They discuss how this tool can be used in various contexts and how it can help overcome challenges in translating financial information for business owners. They also emphasize the power of storytelling in aligning people, diffusing conflict, and creating emotional connections.

Intro (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Virtual CPA Success Show for creative agencies. The go to resource for agency owners looking to scale their business. Join us every week to stay ahead of the curve and position your agency for future success.

Joey (00:00:15) - Thanks for tuning into today's episode of The Virtual Success Show. I had a great talk with Jeff Bartsch from Story Greenlight as we explored the importance of human connection and storytelling, refined our elevator pitches with a strategy called ABT, and learned how our emotions matter when giving or receiving communication. Also, be sure to stick around for the end to hear about our most transformative moviegoing experiences. Hope you enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the show. I'm your solo host today, Joey Kinney, and I'm joined with Jeff Bartsch, who's a storyteller by trade but works a lot with some of our CFOs and other folks here in the agency about talking about stories and how to communicate both internally and externally with clients and coworkers and collaborators. Jeff, thank you so much for hopping on the show today.

Joey (00:01:01) - How are you?

Jeff (00:01:02) - I'm doing awesome, man. Good to see you. Looking forward to this.

Joey (00:01:04) - Yeah. So we were talking a bit offline before we formally started the show about storytelling and how important that is for communication. And you brought up a great point in an email that we shared earlier, which is, it's important not just for communicating externally to your clients, but also communicating internally to your team. What are, what's kind of how did you come up with that thesis? What was your guiding principle? Was there like an aha moment that you were like, Oh, this really all comes back to storytelling?

Jeff (00:01:34) - Well, here's the thing. When we're talking about storytelling, it's easy to start to glom onto what it is and what we think it is and what we've heard about what it is. And it's really easy to sleep on it and to say, Oh, well, I think I know what this is. But really, the more you dig into it, the more you start realizing that storytelling is an incredibly powerful tool for communication.

Jeff (00:02:03) - But it's not only a tool for communication, it's an incredibly it can become incredibly complex within that context. But you can also use storytelling as a way to understand. Forces in our life and our business, how journeys unfold. I mean. You can even apply it to the history of nations all the way back down to the progression of the voices in your head. And it took a long time for all that stuff to kind of swirl around in my head. If you look me up online, you might find that I spent 20 years in Los Angeles shaping content for ABC and NBC and University, Universal and Disney and Apple and a whole bunch of other folks. And that's that's true. But really, that is the latest 20 years of what I've been learning in one form or another my entire life. So back to your question. How do we think about storytelling internally and externally? It starts out as the idea of what a story actually is. So I always say this is based on some initial work by Donald Miller and some of his writings.

Jeff (00:03:24) - He might be familiar with the idea of building a story brand. And he says he initially said in one of his books that a story is where a character wants something and overcomes obstacles to get it. And I expanded that to say that a story is where a character wants something, overcomes obstacles to get it, and experiences transformation as a result. Now when you take those three phrases and you boil them down into their essence, you have identity, you have desire, you have obstacles and conflict, and you have transformation or change. And any time you start talking about stuff that's that fundamental, I mean, this is narrative gravity, this is narrative traction. This is forces guiding our life like it literally is on the level of gravity. It's that powerful and it affects us whether we realize it or not. So, storytelling is really not just how to deliver an anecdote. It can be that it is also a way to understand human connection.

Joey (00:04:35) - When I love that comparison. Because when you were when you were kind of diving into the history of that, I was like, Oh, well, that's the hero's journey that goes back to the Odyssey, that goes back to the Epic of Gilgamesh things that have been around for thousands of years that are kind of like essential human things, right? Stories about the human condition and those types of things that you just see the ripples of all of that through all of your different things, whether you're talking about going back to Chaucer and looking at that and saying, okay, there's a story that's being told here.

Joey (00:05:06) - It just you can just ping different pieces here all throughout the recorded human history that we can measure now with what we have. So that's a really interesting thought about how that this is just it's elemental to our condition and our communication with each other.

Jeff (00:05:25) - Yeah. And here's the thing. I mean, so you mentioned Hero's Journey and the different ways of understanding story that people talk about. And that's one of the other things that has kind of, I turned on some light bulbs for some clients over the years. The idea of, there are so many ways of expressing and structuring a story that people think, Oh, well, it has to be the hero's journey. Oh, in business? Well, it has to be story brand. Oh, well, it doesn't have to be that. It just has to be tell something with a three act structure or sell me something with a beginning in the middle and an end. And the fact is, this is all true.

Jeff (00:06:12) - All of that is true If we think about story structures and the ways of putting them together in the terms of tools in our toolbox, they are all effective. They all are incredibly powerful when used in the right way, at the right time for the right reasons, and which is why it's so easy to get stuck if you're using the wrong tool for the wrong situation. Right. You do not want to go into an elevator pitch and try to talk about a night, talk about 97 plot points.

Joey (00:06:50) - The elevator. Right. You've got to streamline that.

Jeff (00:06:52) - Yep. Yeah, yeah. Just as an extreme example. So yeah, all of this, this all happens. This all happens within these different contexts in the ways of expressing it. But what I really want people to know is the idea of what is the value, what happens with all this stuff. Because the whole point of that definition is the idea of experiencing transformation. We want to see change happen. We want to see change happen in our life.

Jeff (00:07:25) - We want to see change happen in our business. We want to see change happen in our world. And that is what storytelling helps to do, especially when we elevate it to the idea of strategic storytelling. Do it, doing it on purpose for a specific reason. Then you end up with something that is perfectly suited for your goal, and it brings incredibly powerful results because it is literally hardwired into our brain. So in business, this becomes that it's easy to get into the theoretical weeds. But let's talk about business. Let's bring this into, okay, who are we talking to? Are we talking to clients? Are we talking to people on our team? You know, because any of those people, they have things that they care about. They have things that they want. They have things getting in their way. And so this is a way of engaging persuasion. This is a way of engaging leadership. It is, it you can go all down all sorts of rabbit holes.

Joey (00:08:35) - Well, you mentioned that a key word there that I speak about a lot with my team, which is kind of having the toolbox. Right. You've got a toolbox that you can use and you use this strategy here and this strategy there and think it's a really effective metaphor because you can visualize it, right? You can go into something, you can visualize, okay, I've got a toolbox here, I've got a ruler and I've got a tape measure and I've got a hammer. And certain times I might need to pull out the hammer when I need to really tell a story that needs to have gravitas and weight to it and really explain, you know, kind of why this is important for everyone to get on board. And where I was, where I'm curious about is if you could, especially with keeping our agency owners in mind and thinking about that from that perspective. What are some tools that you would like to see in your toolbox from a storytelling perspective if you were an agency owner, do you have a couple that you think are really effective kind of your go to tools for storytelling?

Jeff (00:09:31) - Sure.

Jeff (00:09:32) - There is a super powerful tool that I actually have only started using myself within the last year. But man, it is incredibly powerful. You know what? Can we stop down? I just squeaked my chair and kicked something on the floor. So I'm. Since we know that Rob's here, I'm going to take the liberty of requesting a pickup here, man.

Joey (00:10:00) - Yeah, let's do it.

Jeff (00:10:02) - So I'll pick it up from. So your question was, what are tools that agency owners should use?

Joey (00:10:09) - Yeah. Yeah. What are some tools in the toolbox that would work well for an agency owner?

Jeff (00:10:14) - Absolutely. There is a super powerful tool that I've actually only discovered myself over the last year. And it's a tool called ABT. The ABTs of Storytelling. I first found out about this from a gentleman by the name of Park Howell, and he has a podcast called The Business of Storytelling. And he and one of his friends, actually.

Jeff (00:10:43) - The last name of the man who came up with the concept is escaping me at the moment. It'll come to me in a little bit. But Randy Olson, Randy Olson and Park Howell came up with this idea of ABT and it stands for AND, BUT, THEREFOR and what it is, this tool is the gateway to any kind of story structure you can imagine. In Western culture, in Eastern culture. Anything you can imagine this is think of it as the gateway drug, the training wheels for understanding story structure. So you have the idea of and but and therefore and what happens is you begin with a statement saying. We want this, and if we get this, it's going to be amazing. Then the next statement is, But here's what's getting in our way. And if we don't fix it. Bad news. Therefore, the third phrase. Therefore, here's what needs to happen. Here's what I propose, and that is the superstructure. That is the superstructure for setting up any.

Jeff (00:12:09) - Persuasive statements. Any kind of article, any kind of writing, Any kind of. Anything you could imagine. It is also intrinsically linked to that definition of the story that we talked about earlier. The idea of a character who wants something overcomes obstacles to get it and experiences transformation as a result. So it's desire, conflict. In that definition is desire, conflict and change. And when with this ABT tool, when you start setting things up in three sections of and it's an idea of agreement, this is who we are. This is what we want. This is what we want our future to be. Then you go to the middle part. But this is the conflict. This is what's getting in our way. Therefore, this is what we need to do to overcome the conflict. And the question then becomes, okay, where does the conversation go from there? Does that lead to the change that we all want to see? So if you take the idea of ABT and you start using that, heck, you can use that and you're not even you don't even have to tell a story.

Joey (00:13:24) - No, you're just you're literally just setting the table stakes at that point. And then and I'm thinking about that you mentioned the elevator pitch earlier where you can't have that be a 78 point thing. It can certainly be a three point thing where you can say, hey, client, this is where you want to go and this is what it's going to lead to, but this is what's holding you back. Therefore, we propose this solution to get you there. You've now set the table stakes in a very succinct manner, and the client can then choose whether or not they want to sit down and play with you 100%. And I think that's a very effective methodology to think about and think it would work really well for internal things too. I oftentimes in my role here at Summit, find myself in between two different things where we need to find a solution. Right? I've got as part of our merger with Andrews, we're working on, you know, kind of figuring out how we're going to play in the new world.

Joey (00:14:14) - And we've got very entrenched processes and procedures that are in place and different goals from these things. And the way that you can approach that internally is say, hey, you know, person, whoever it is, you want this outcome, but we have this blocker in the way, therefore we need to go down this solution path to solve it. And that's a very succinct way to handle both external and internal conflicts. And that's a great tool.

Jeff (00:14:40) - And the cool thing about this is not only is this the beginning, not only is this the foundation for story structure, it also doubles up as a foundation for any communication that you use. It bridges those two worlds, because one of the other things that people talk about is the idea of, oh, well, if you want to talk about persuasion, well, you just talk to the salespeople, you talk to the marketing people. But really talk to the salespeople because they know how to get people to say, yes. Well, here's the thing.

Jeff (00:15:15) - Storytelling is something that has if you look at some of the modern research, it has been proven over and over and over again that when storytelling and strategic storytelling is used in an effective way. It provides incredible amounts of persuasion in a very low stress, low friction kind of way. Whereas, I mean, let's face it, a lot of times persuasion via sales is less than low friction or certainly can be.

Joey (00:15:48) - Right, Right.

Jeff (00:15:49) - You know, so.

Joey (00:15:51) - I worked in the real estate world for a number of years. I've seen some of the I don't want to say tactics that can be used there, but it can.

Jeff (00:15:58) - Call them tactics. Dude, they're totally tactics.

Joey (00:16:01) - It can feel aggressive at times. And, you know, if you can come up with a way to do your storytelling that doesn't come off as aggressive and just says, hey, here's a way to think about something, here's a solution, let's explore if you're interested. That's a much less that's a much more palatable way to pitch something to somebody.

Joey (00:16:19) - I think that would make it a lot easier for me as the recipient of that pitch to overcome maybe some of my initial objections to hearing it.

Jeff (00:16:29) - Sure. And that is one of the main reasons why a lot of the times when we talk about communication, a lot of the times we talk about, Hey, everyone, we've got this problem. It's really bad. Let me tell you how bad it is. Let me twist the knife to say this. It's this really bad. I'm going to pour some salt in the wound. And are you all feeling terrible now? I have the solution. Here it is. Well, what happens if the person you're talking to says, I don't believe that that's actually the problem that we have. So, I mean you're they you know. You've lost him from the very beginning.

Joey (00:17:03) - Correct.

Jeff (00:17:04) - Which is why when you start from a place of agreement, when you start using with the concept of and you say, this is who we are, this is what we agree on, this is what we want.

Jeff (00:17:19) - And you get someone to say, Oh, yeah, I do want that. Yes, yes. And then you can talk about what's getting in our way. Because then they are far more open to hearing about the issues that are getting in the way from what they've already said that they want. So it's a far more you know, psychologically you're going into it. With, you know, you're going into it. Much farther ahead when you have that agreement in place already.

Joey (00:17:51) - You're almost doing it backwards. You know, I think I have a lot I have golf posters behind me. So the audience knows I do have a history with playing some golf. And I've used to describe that process to people was like, I have to play the hole backwards. I can't play it from the tee forward. I have to play it from the green back because until I know the end, how do I know where I'm supposed to get to? And that's what I enjoyed about that thought process, is you're almost doing the argument backwards and saying, okay, we're going to start from a place of agreement and build it that way.

Joey (00:18:20) - Instead of forcing this idea down everyone's throats, you're going into it with a more collaborative nature saying, We're going to agree to what's working. Then we're going to explore what's holding us back from getting there, and then we're going to propose a solution.

Jeff (00:18:36) - Yeah. Absolutely.

Joey (00:18:37) - I like that.

Jeff (00:18:38) - And that's one of the things that when people talk about persuasion in communication and in storytelling, one of that concept of that concept of working backwards, it's you find corollaries with us everywhere. I mean, go to Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The number one thing is begin with the end in mind, right? You know, work backwards. And a lot of times you'll hear Hollywood screenwriters say, write the climax first. Write the ending first. And that's something that I've found to be incredibly helpful when workshopping specific, messages or stories with clients to say, hey, you know, the only reason that the only way that this message will truly land. With the emotional impact that you want is if we start backwards, if we start at the end, knowing what we want our audience to do or believe how we want their perspective to change, and to do that, you have to know who the audience is.

Jeff (00:19:51) - You have to know what they want. You have to know their storyline. You have to know who they are, what they want, what's getting in their way, and you know, and what change they want. Then you have to know who you are and how who you are or your business and how your business can help them get what they want. So you get these tools. And the more tools that you start using, the more ways that you can combine them in a way such that, okay, everyone starts getting what they want with this definition, with this story, definition is how does everyone get what they want? That's the question.

Joey (00:20:27) - Well, and it's a great point there that I want to just hammer home there, too. This isn't a tool. That's a solve, you know, like the magic tool that solves everything. It can amplify, but you've got to do the research ahead of time. You've got to do the investment on your end up front to, as you mentioned, figure out what your client wants, figure out your client's ethos and how they see things and how they view the world and identify their problems.

Joey (00:20:53) - It's not a it's not a magic solution, but if you do your work and come up with it from that perspective and then apply this tool, it's going to magnify and amplify your effectiveness in telling that story.

Jeff (00:21:09) - Absolutely. Yeah. So I'd be curious, could we could we get some specifics in here? I know we've talked about a lot of theory. Yeah. What are some specifics that you've seen folks within the CFOs at Summit, some challenges with agency owners or with their clients. What kind of communication messages need to go out and sometimes go out. Well, sometimes work and sometimes they don't.

Joey (00:21:40) - Yeah. No, I think that's a great question. So I'll start from the VCFO side first and then I'll also bring in an example that I've heard from some clients in terms of where that kind of could play in there. I think the thing that's interesting from the accountant's perspective, and we've noticed this shift in accounting for I would say the last 15 to 20 years is when this shift has started moving.

Joey (00:22:03) - When my parents were accountants, there were financial statements and around stuff, but we weren't focusing on the advisory piece as much. Public accountants weren't doing it. We were doing audits, we were doing tax work. It was very focus on the past. Where the industry is going is and we've talked about this with our CFOs. You're working with a couple of our CFOs behind the scenes on \ fixing some of these things as well, is we've got to make sure that we are taking these numbers. And numbers can be abstract and some people are numbers folks, some people, some people aren't. And we've got to figure out how to translate that into here's what the numbers say, but more importantly, here's what that means. And where I've seen that work really well is people who can translate between, what, a 5% decrease in net operating income this month means to the big picture of the company, Hey, this means we're not going to be able to do that retreat that we wanted to do this fall.

Joey (00:23:00) - We're going to have to scale that back or we can fix this problem here and now you can have that super awesome retreat that you want to have in November. Or, you know, along the same lines, you know, in a positive sense. Hey, you know, this was a wonderful thing that happened. And here's what you're going to be able to do for your employees as a thank you for that. We can do this now with this and turning these real abstract things like numbers and percentages and all of the metrics that we look at, they're all great and they we know what they mean as accountants, but we've got to figure out how our business owner thinks about that and do that translation, think about it from their perspective and say, you know, this person maybe doesn't understand it in numerical terms, but they get it. If I like, you know, one of our guys loves to talk about basketball, so sometimes we talk about it in terms of basketball. Here's what this would mean in a basketball situation or here's what this would mean.

Joey (00:23:54) - You know, in some other thing that makes sense to the owner from that perspective. So that's probably the biggest challenge that we have with on the VCFO side is training our folks to get out of the numbers and get out of thinking about it as this is what it is and get into that mindset of, But what does it mean? And making that translation in terms of where I've seen it work really effectively with business owners is the folks who are able to do exactly what you're saying, figure out what the problem is and figure out how to compellingly tell the client this is how we solve it and this is what it means. Those folks are going to be instantly more successful in their business. And I thought about one of my clients in particular where their function is. They will do a lot of work on the production piece of the projects. They take production work from clients and move it down and their value proposition. And they're really good at telling the client this value proposition is you have this thing that you need to get done, this deliverable, whether it's an email or a banner ad or campaign or whatever it happens to be, your client needs you to produce this, but you don't have the resources right now to be able to produce the quality of content that you want.

Joey (00:25:17) - Therefore, you should work with us to 

Jeff (00:25:20) -  Love it! 

Joey (00:25:21) - Help you do that. And they are incredibly good at having that conversation and they fit really well within their specific niche. So that's a really great example of how you can use that type of storytelling to, you know, kind of again, start from that point of agreement. Explain the conflict, overcome the conflict, and then hit your resolution.

Jeff (00:25:45) - Oh, that's so good. I mean, and I'll tell you, it's this ABT thing. It is. It's like those games. There is a game called Mastermind that my that my siblings and I used to play when we were kids and it said on the outside of the box takes minutes to learn a lifetime to master and this is one of those things because it is, you really can put something like this ABT concept into play right away with very little with very little skull sweat put into it. But the more you get into it, the trickier it can become in terms of saying in terms of shaping.

Jeff (00:26:34) - In terms of shaping things, especially in critical, important conversations where someone needs to become aligned 

Joey (00:26:43) - And or someone you need to get consensus or you need to diffuse conflict. That's when you can use these ideas and you can start from there, but then you can actually expand above that to go to a more, to pull out one of the other storytelling tools from the toolbox and actually talk about a narrative story and say, here's here's what you know, here's what's happening with our here, here's what's happening with our with you know, you can you can talk about the talk about the balance sheet. Okay well here's what's happening with the NOI The NOI dropped but and we know that, you know, we know that we've been planning on working this. I've been in this kind of a situation before. There was a time when I experienced this, and I felt this way. So you set up the a way that you things that happened before and it comes to a head.

Jeff (00:27:52) - And said we realized that we had to do blah and we decided to put that into action. Here's what happened and here's how people felt afterwards. Here's a life afterwards. So right then you've taken those ideas that you set up with ABT and you've elevated that into a very simple before twist after kind of a context,.

Joey (00:28:19) - And you've tied in the emotion, which is important to. I think that's an important. 

Jeff (00:28:23) - That’s incredibly Important, yes.

Jeff (00:28:25) - And that right there is when people want to actually get into really important conversations, that is when it is incredibly important to include the emotion.

Joey (00:28:39) - That's an interesting thing because I was thinking back, one of the tools that I use when I start a meeting with a client and it can be, you know, we obviously do financials, but it can be anybody who's checking in with a client. I always start from a, Hey, this month, from my perspective looked really good or looked really bad or was kind of blocked in the middle, right? Does that match how you felt about the month? How did you feel about it? Did you feel like it was good? Did you feel like it was bad or did you feel like it was just a whole other month? And that's actually helped in a couple of situations where I've gone into a meeting thinking like, Oh, man, we're going to just we're going to crush it.

Joey (00:29:20) - We're doing so good. Everything was great. It should be a very rosy meeting. And we start with that question and the client's like, Yeah, you know, I know the numbers were good or the deliverable came out the way we wanted to, but I just didn't feel great about it because this happened and this happened and that happened and it just didn't feel like it. And it changed the tenor of the meeting, and I was able to adjust my storytelling and I was able to adjust the content of my meeting to say, okay, well, yep, financially it was good. But it sounds like we've got another problem here. Let's start diving into that and let's figure out what was going on and see if these numbers or this deliverable or whatever it is, can give us some insights as to why you're feeling that way.

Jeff (00:30:00) - Dude. I mean, that's when that's exactly what needs to happen because to get slightly film school geek-ish at the moment

Joey (00:30:10) - Let's do it!

Jeff (00:30:12) - That it won't be long I promise.

Jeff (00:30:16) - The idea of change is the primal force. It's the end that we're all looking for in terms of storylines. We want to see things change. We want to see improvement. We want to see growth. We want to have a change of mind. Fill in the blank. That is a kind of change that happens inside people's hearts and minds. In screenwriting, people talk about external change, which if you're talking about an action movie, it's car chase and things blow up. And they were there before and now they're gone because they all blew up. That's external change. It's easy to show that. It's easy to demonstrate that because you see it. People do not get emotionally attached to that. And people do not change the way they think based on, Oh, I saw something blow up. What happens when people what happens to make people actually become emotionally invested and to come to a place where they're ready to change their minds, change the way they see the world is when they go through a process of internal change.

Jeff (00:31:25) - So what you just talked about with that conversation saying. I think this is going great. How do you feel? And they say, okay, well, yeah, the numbers are good, but here's how I'm feeling because I'm not in a good place. And that's when that's when as communicators, we have to say, okay, this is important. We need to be thinking about, okay, this client in that moment, the client is your audience and you need to find out what does the audience want, what is getting in their way, How, how are they still feeling down when the numbers are so good? And then you have to start talking to what the obstacles are in their mind. And, you know, it's. That is the way to start asking those questions, to lead the client through their own journey of internal transformation so that hopefully by the end of that meeting you have come alongside, if you want to add an element of the hero's journey here, you've come alongside as the guide.

Jeff (00:32:34) - Yoda to Luke Skywalker, if you will. Minus the green hair, minus the green skin and the ear hair and all that.

Joey (00:32:42) - Well, Rob can put that in post if we need to.

Jeff (00:32:45) - Fair enough.

Jeff (00:32:46) - And you you've.

Jeff (00:32:49) - Come alongside the client and you have been the guide to help them be the hero of their story. And so they experience internal transformation. They were. Well, I'll just leave it at that.

Joey (00:33:03) - I think that's a great place to leave it. And I think we need to queue up at least another one of these in this, create a little mini series out of this because I think we could talk about this for hours if we needed to. And I think our audience would love to hear it as well, because every no matter what you're doing, if you're not an effective communicator, you're not going to be effective at it. And this is a fantastic, fantastic tool to help kind of get people started on their own transformation in terms of how to become a better, a better storyteller.

Joey (00:33:32) - I'd love to finish real quick today with just a quick little kind of off topic thing. And you got me thinking when you mentioned film school and as most people know, last weekend was what did we call it, Open Barbie or Barbie Heimer weekend where two massive movies came out at the same time. And Open Heimer, of course, being a very important story to my home state of New Mexico. I still have not seen the movie yet, but it got me thinking. Film and movies and storytelling transformed people's lives in all kinds of different ways. It's why it's such an important part of culture and humanity and all of these things. And I'd just like to know if you can think real quickly, what was your favorite movie going or theater going, some sort of culture that you were immersing in experience that was transformative to you? Do you have one that you can think of off the top of your head? And if not, I can start with mine because I know pretty quickly what my favorite movie experience was.

Jeff (00:34:33) - Well. Okay. So that. If we're going to talk about moviegoing experience, I will say there was a pretty epic there's a pretty epic moment where. When did this come out? It was matrix revolutions.

Joey (00:34:55) - Okay.

Jeff (00:34:55) - It was the.

Joey (00:34:57) - And that's the third one, right?

Jeff (00:34:58) - It's the third movie in the trilogy of The Matrix. And I'm just. You know, it's been out for a while, so warning. I'm about to give some spoilers.

Joey (00:35:10) - It's been 20 years. It's on us at this point.

Jeff (00:35:12) - It's been a while. It's kind of like talking about spoilers to the Titanic. You know, the ship sinks and all that. So matrix revolutions. There. There was a conflict that was building in the story to the point where Neo ended up making a deal with the Day of Sex Machine, the God and the Machine, and you didn't know exactly what was happening. But in the meantime, we're going through all these conflict, all this fighting and all this, all these explosions and all this stuff.

Jeff (00:35:50) - And I'm sitting in the ground Chinese theater, downtown Hollywood, and they you know, it's the theater with all the handprints and the footprints in the sidewalk out front. Right. It's been around forever. Massive screen, massive sound system. I was sitting in the chairs. I could feel the air from the subwoofers blasting me in my face every time something blew up. It was absolutely epic, but it was nothing compared to the way that I felt when I realized what Neo's deal was with the God and the machine. He ended up sacrificing himself. For the sake of humanity, for the sake of the entire universe. And, you know, personally, when I saw that, I just sat in the in my chair, I could barely even breathe. My shoulders were shaking. It was it was so incredibly powerful specifically to me. I've been a lifelong follower of Jesus. And that model of what Neo did for the universe is an exact corollary to the story of what followers of Jesus talk about what Jesus did for all of us.

Jeff (00:37:15) - It's a very, very deeply held concept and it's an incredibly powerful concept. And that moment was just absolutely incredible because it made a connection.

Joey (00:37:30) - That's an instant connection. Yeah. Yeah. To something that's as ingrained in you as anything else.

Jeff (00:37:37) - Yeah. So that was a pretty epic moment, I will say that. What about you?

Joey (00:37:43) - So I've got one that I can think of that kind of harkens back to what you were saying earlier about thinking about the story from behind. So I don't know if you remember 2004 much. It's been almost 20 years, but I've never forgotten how I felt. There were two movies that came out that summer at the same time. One was The Prestige, this was a Christopher Nolan film that I deeply, deeply love. And the other was The Illusionist, which, for whatever reason, did not get as much love as The Prestige. But that theater experience. When you're sitting there and you're watching I was watching the show. I remember it vividly.

Joey (00:38:18) - I was in high school. I was watching the movie, and it gets to the end game and you start to see the ripples of all of the things that they had set up previously. I want to give it away. But it's a wonderful twist at the end that once you see it, everything that happened previously makes perfect sense and all comes into play. And it was the perfect culmination of like this aha moment where I remember looking at my girlfriend at the time and we were both just like eyes wide, like, Whoa, whoa, What just happened? I can't believe that's how that turned out. And it was that perfect moment of like, catharsis and you're going through it on the screen with the inspector who's like, kind of figuring out what's going on. And it's a wonderful performance by Edward Norton and can't remember the Paul Giamatti was the other, the actor who's the inspector. And you just see him on the screen with this wide eyed look of amazement of like, oh my God, this guy just pulled this off.

Joey (00:39:20) - And you're like, You were right. I was right there with him. So it was wonderful. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for joining us today. How can our clients find you in terms of either looking at your work or collaborating with you on things? Where can we best get in touch with you?

Jeff (00:39:39) - Sure. The place to go is storygreenlight.com. That's the place to go storygreenlight.com and that'll give you some links to. I'll tell you more about what my team do and how we help people and how we can and how we could potentially work together.

Joey (00:39:59) - Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a blast. I can't wait to do this again. We're going to have to do a couple more because I think there's I think we've just, you know, looked at the top of the iceberg of all the stuff we could talk about. So looking forward to catching up with you again soon.

Jeff (00:40:12) - Awesome. Appreciate you, man.

Joey (00:40:14) - Thank you. 

Jeff (00:40:15) - Thank you.

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