What’s the most valuable tool that you have to inspire people?

I’ve been observing influential people for years and notice that they all have one critical similarity.

They all tell stories.

It makes sense when you consider that the entire human experience is rooted in storytelling. From the earliest days of caveman we’ve been telling stories to convey greater meaning. Inspiring others to take action or learn lessons.

So let me ask you… what stories do you have to tell?

As I would discover during this episode, there are actually 7 essential stories that we need as leaders in our companies. Which is why I turned to my new friend Kurian to help me learn more.

Kurian Mathew Tharakan is the founder of the sales and marketing strategy firm StrategyPeak Sales & Marketing Advisors and a 27-year veteran of the sales and marketing industry. He has consulted for companies in numerous sectors. Kurian is also the author of the Amazon Bestseller, “The 7 Essential Stories Charismatic Leaders Tell,” which details how anyone can move people and mountains with the power of story.

I hope this moves you into action, documenting and telling your own story. And giving yourself the permission to share and be vulnerable to inspire those around you.

On the next episode we’ll continue to explore storytelling and the impact that it can have in your life and business.

See you soon.

Links

Buy Kurian’s Book: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/19904486.Kurian_Mathew_Tharakan

Learn more at https://www.adamliette.com

Activate The Warrior Within https://www.adamliette.com/awaken-the-warrior

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Transcript

Adam Liette
Hey what's up smoothie operators Welcome to this episode. So let me just tell you something about this thing we call entrepreneurship. And it's something that I learned when I lived in Hawaii when I got stationed there. And I spent about two years in Hawaii and I learned a ton about surfing culture. So surfers, professional surfers spend their entire lives looking for what they call a wave of consequence. Because when you ride that you've seen the pictures when they ride that gigantic wave, and it propels them to new levels that they can never imagined in their career, before they ride that wave. The thing is, when you're watching the waves come in, when the waves are starting way out from the beach, you don't know what the wave of consequences you have to keep on going out and trying jumping on new waves trying again, and sang consistent with it. Because Susie know it's a wave of consequence, it's already too late. But it's from the continued discipline of going out time and time again. Because you never know when that wave is coming. But the next wave you ride might be your wave of consequence that will propel you to heights that you never imagined. So what did I just do there, I told you a story. And we human beings were geared towards stories. It's what draws us in and what's makes us relatable, it what makes this whole thing called human society keep going. We've been doing storytelling since before we could write it's part of our DNA a part of who we are. And that hasn't changed just because we got these little smart boxes in front of us that deliver stuff to us. In fact, I would argue that storytelling is becoming even more and more powerful in your ability to lead and your ability to market your ability to reach your audience, which is why I'm absolutely obsessed with the art of storytelling. And I love to speak to people that would love to learn more. This never ending journey that I'm on searching for my own wave of consequence. So with that I have a special guest Kurian theragun. He's the founder and sales of the marketing strategy, firm strategy, peak sales and marketing advisors. He's been in this business for 27 years, and he's the author of the Amazon bestseller. The seven essential stories charismatic leaders tell which details how anyone can move people in mountains with the power of story. Kurian dude, it's so nice to have you. How are you this evening?

Kurian Tharakan
Really good. Adam, good to good to be on your program. My first out of Ohio. Yeah,

Adam Liette
baby. Well, we're all just freezing here. You know, you're in Canada, I'm here. It's all it's middle winter, we're recording this thing and trying to stay warm. But you know, there is nothing warmer than the warmth of a zoom screen. Right? Yes.

Kurian Tharakan
Warm hues of that zooms zoom screen.

Adam Liette
Love it, man. Well, it's so awesome to have you. Man, how did I we talked a little bit in the pre show. Like, I'd love to know more about your background, how you came to launch your your firm and 27 years in the biz. Like, dude, you gotta have some good stories of your own. So love to hear more about your background?

Kurian Tharakan
Sure, well, it's so I've got a company, I've got a couple of different businesses. One of them is called strategy, peak sales and marketing advisors. And that is an employee base of one and that's me. So and we help companies develop their strategy, a lot of branding work, sales work as well developing sales framework. So you know, so we don't do sales training, we do sales frameworks. Like next week, we'll be going in to help the client develop a sales book sales playbook for the their leasing team for a brand new commercial project building. And that's a team of one, but then I've got a partner in a digital marketing agency as well called social communications. And I'm one of three partners, we have 35 people there. We're a Shopify marketing agency, and both those kinds of things, you know, it's interesting as strategy peak, you don't ever really set out to do this and most marketers are accidental marketers, right? They, you know, either you get into a really young or you get into a later and it's it's very accidental, and it's never what you think it's going to be? No, the the places that you are welcomed into the places that you are shunned, market wise, right, sector wise, things like that, and eventually find your niche. And you know, my niche happened to be more on the strategy side of the business, where we're helping people really understand who they are, what their brand is. And that brand, the core of that brand is that value proposition that tangible concrete outcome. When somebody buys your product or service, what they become, what's that transformation promise right? And then you will put all that together into a central branding strategy, the core of that branding strategy is that big idea. The big idea is, of course that, you know that transformation narrative will, what do you become after consuming that product or service. And then from that big idea, you have some key messages that go from there that support the big idea. And then it's all put into the big transformation narrative. And right, so that's the ultimate thing, where you are going to become something that you weren't something that you want to be that you weren't before as a result of participating in this story.

Adam Liette
I love it. And like, too often, we think of branding as just like, well, what is your logo, what is your mission statement, all that but it goes so much deeper and like wrapping transformation into it, because like, the most compelling products that we use, have a transformational aspect to it, they do like move your life in a certain direction. And it's definitely, definitely interesting. And when, if you haven't thought about your branding, guys, like you might want to, like, it does really say a whole lot about what you're trying to actually do in the world and what your mission is. So that's awesome. Yeah, and,

Kurian Tharakan
you know, I was locked in a room with 30 lawyers, just a couple of months ago, oh, my son, and we were, it was in the mountains, and it was part of their retreat, and I was the load marketing guy in a room of 30 lawyers. So I would never imagine that in my life. And we're building personal brands for them, you know, for each of the departments, and then the individuals within within the departments and things like that. And the opening slide is, you know, either you take command of the engineering of that brand narrative, or the world will do it for you. Oh, and so it doesn't matter whether you thought about it or not thought about it's happening, whether you like it or not that brand narrative is like breathing, you know, when you don't choose to breathe, okay? If you are choosing to breathe, okay, you're probably in trouble. Breathing is a reflex in a breathing is a natural reflex is part of your overall, you know, your overall body systems, right? You just do it, that's the way a brand is for a company. And whether you are deliberately engineering that brand, or the world is engineering for you, it doesn't matter. Brand is about meaning brands have a meaning embedded in story. And the problem is, if you let the world do it for you, it may not be the story that you want it to be. So that's the real problem with you know, not deliberately taking command of your brand.

Adam Liette
And once you're branded a rebrand, you've probably been involved in a couple of rebrands. I've been involved in a couple. A rebrand is not an easy thing. Because the story the story is already told, and you're trying to change it. Yeah.

Kurian Tharakan
And it's very, very difficult to do you know, rebranding, but I've worked with a lot of startups. So we don't I haven't been in a whole bunch of you know, re you know, position the Queen Marriott out at sea. Right? That's the problem, the perfect analogy for a rebrand for a big, big firm. But establishing the brand, even, you know, it can be just as difficult sometimes, because the story is untold, or told, or has to be retold right now. And so those three things, we come to those kinds of things. You have to take command of it in a way that is functionally relevant and emotionally significant to your audience. And the best way to do that is through stories.

Adam Liette
Absolutely. And when we think about brand story, we think about I mean, there's a big brand story brand, who kind of got associated with that, in so many ways, good branding on their part. Like when we think about our brand story, what are those elements? Obviously, I started this episode with a story like what are the elements of a brand story that we need to consider if we want to consider our own?

Kurian Tharakan
Well, the central the central story has to be about transformation. Okay, you have to that is the central story. A brand is about the tangible concrete outcome on variety of different category levels, right, of what somebody receives what they become, after they consume your brand, you know, consume the products that your brand produces. And that's where it all starts but after that, then we've got probably at least six maybe seven more stories thereafter, at least six because if we say the transformation story is the big idea. That is Story number three in the complex, you know and then you have another six stories that that support the big idea.

Adam Liette
Okay, so the big idea is story three story three. Story one is the transformation. What story two is well, story

Kurian Tharakan
three is is this transformation story. The big story three is the transformation. What story one on. Okay, so let's back up just a little bit here and and how did I come up with these seven stories? I studied how the world's major religions did it. Hmm. And I remember reading so you know, I just turned 60 This last summer. So I'm a I'm a, I've been around the block a couple of times. And maybe about 30 years ago, I heard the story about one of Silicon Valley's first real marketing geniuses, a fella by the name of Regis McKenna. And Regis was the guy to go to in Silicon Valley, in the late 60s, early 70s. So you had Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, you had Apple, for sure doing this, right. And Regis was a real philosopher, when it came to that he's still around with, right. And one of the things that Regis said, that just absolutely caught me was that great marketing takes its cues from great religion. Now, throughout history, now, if you read the book that I've gotten the book I wrote, called the seven essential stories, charismatic leaders tell, and it's just complete, chock full of stories, a lot of historical stories, you know, and so it's not just a whole bunch of little things that I made up, it's actually a lot of history based based stories that are going to be revealing some primal principles to help you move your brand forward. And so the world's religious have been 1000s upon 1000s of religions in the world, since the dawn of human civilization 1000s. And today, what we have is, you know, some very big primary send the bright most, the biggest is going to be Christianity 2.2 billion people. Well, that, that religion is only 2000 years old. We have Islam right next to it. And that is started in the six hundreds. So it's, you know, you know, it's a seventh century creation, right. So Islam has about 1.81 point 9 million people, and they both come from Judaism. And Judaism is only 15 million people worldwide. But so these are the three Abrahamic religions. But then beyond that, we have Hinduism. And we have Buddhism, which is more of a philosophy, but are you going to have found the root thing you have? These are the big, big ones, right? But if you went back, you know, maybe 1000 years ago, 1500 years ago is the Rastafarianism was going to be a big deal. Right? There's still roses, Zoroastrians Rob, what do all of these religions have in common, and what they have in common is the ability to tell great stories. And the stories are designed to, you know, it's like a funnel. There's an acquisition funnel, there's a nurturing funnel, there's a desert, there's a conversion funnel, literally a conversion funnel, literally, literally, to do that. And so you have all these different things that bring people to a tent, and nurture them, prime them get ready for the ultimate conversion. And all these religions do that very well. And they do it through what is called a story complex, and the story complexes, they're all individual stories that stand alone, but they interlock together. And they support each other. Right. And that's how you get create all of these different answers, embedded in stories to address the primal questions in people's minds. You know, and so the primal question is like, story one. And so all these religions have seven basic stories. Story, one is creation origin, how did this all begin? And so we have the Garden of Eden, you know, as you know, both in Judaism, and actually, all three of those religions create an origin but in businesses out of the company begin, we have our identity, beliefs and values, you know, who are we as people? What are the core sacraments that they wouldn't have done? What are the core beliefs and values that we have to hold sacred? What must we never challenge? What was we always adhere to? We talked about story three, which is all about the big idea, when this is a transformation start, who will you become? Okay, after you become an adherent of this religion, story for us, the enemy we face? And you know, in the in all three Abrahamic religions, the enemy we face is going to be evil or satan. Right. But we know for UNICEF, it might be childhood, what is it hunger, Jolly, you know, you know, to fight against starvation in war zones and things like that. And that might be what you find here. It might be to fight for adult literacy in organizations are for that. When Steve Jobs first started Apple, it was to fight against and I'm talking about the Macintosh days, right not at the very beginning. It was just amazing that he can build a circuit board and become a computer doing really rudimentary stuff. But by the time that Lisa happened, he wanted to actually make a dent in the universe. And so it's a completely different reason for developing that side of the business. And he started in a completely different building, they will they waved the Jolly Roger flag over the building, it was a skunk works, right? Completely different culture. Story five is the mighty wins. The mighty wins are all about the five, the six macro trends that every company faces, right. And we say that every business is like a sail ship. And the sail ship has six macro trends that can either buffet, the wind buffer the sails, you can blow it forward, or cease to blow it all. And these six macro trends are things like societal trends, technological, environmental, economic, political, legislative trends. And those experience if you're counter to that trend, you're going nowhere, you're both might actually capsize, right? But if you're with the trend, you will ride that wave up for it. And if we take a look at it right now, one of the big, big trends, one of the big trends, artificial intelligence, Blockchain is still there, cybersecurity, right? Those are three big trends, where are those going to go in the next 20 years? You know, and how can we capitalize on that not only from the perspective of building companies around that, but building software and technologies from those companies to enable other industries. Story six, story six, it's actually several stories that story six is going to be the journey we must undertake. So the first five stories are the left side of the equation. And if your people believe those six stories are true, then it's an equal sign. This will obviously this is a journey we must undertake. We got to do this, because we believe that these six stories are absolutely the way things are happening to them. And finally, Story number seven is the why we will win story. And the why we will story we will win story takes the previous six and encapsulates it to something much shorter, more concise, something that you do the single telling, right, and those six things. So those six stories in one telling also add what we call Keystone elements. And the Keystone elements guarantee your people to win. And so some common Keystone elements would be things like God is with us, superior people, superior technology. Right, you know, it's all these things, it's hundreds of key stones. And but now, with that Keystone, we are going to take those stories, rally forward, and we will win those those seven stories.

Adam Liette
Wow. So I've been taking notes this whole time, if you kind of tell that because there's the idea of these, like, I was just doing some training over the weekend actually on storytelling, specifically like for some some sales material on building. And there was this idea in a six story story story story. And I didn't put the pieces together in the story complex. And so that's where some of like, the disparate ideas are, like coming together in this framework. And I think what you're providing here, being an operations guy, I love a good framework, because it gives us that pathway to take. And now I just have more ideas than I can possibly work. Thank you. I'm gonna be up half the night. I'm gonna be piecing these together, because it is like this really, like smooth way of working through the whole process. I love it. Yeah.

Kurian Tharakan
And I'll tell you what, if you will, all seven of those stories are listed. If you come to my website, strategy peak.com. On the right, you can download it for free is a full infographic with the all seven stories.

Adam Liette
Fantastic. Well, that link will be in the show notes, everyone. So don't rush to the site right now. You'll get it once we're done talking. Okay. That is so cool. And I love. I'm also a firm believer, like the fact that all these religions have these things in common. There's not that's not an accident. There's a reason that these things have endured over time. And when you look at great leaders like Steve Jobs, revolutionaries in their industry, it was always about the story that they were telling their followers to get him to come up under that united flag. And like how, in our own organization, so we have to I think stories in two different ways. There's the marketing side, but there's also the leadership side. Like how can these same kinds of stories help us as leaders to inspire, motivate and ultimately create our own internal followers in an organization

Kurian Tharakan
Well, or also all seven stories of primal stories, that primal they exist, whether you identify their existence or not, they're just there. And those seven stories are designed to answer those seven primal questions. Okay, you know, how do we begin? You know, what do we believe in? Who do we fight for or fight against? You know, those are seven primal questions. And so all of these things, when you are developing a company, when you're building a business, either you are giving people those seven stories, or they're making them up for themselves. Do you want to know how that business started over there? Tried to plenty. That's not the story you want. That is not the story that you want, right whatsoever. But unless you provide that creation story, you may have rumor mills to contend with.

Adam Liette
That is so cool. So even from the outset, like, like, let's say the solopreneur is out there on his own, hasn't built a team yet. That doesn't stop us from even telling our own story. And almost like, I can see it as almost like a rallying cry to yourself, like to be able to tell your own origin and to be able to do that, those those types of things, with these stories. Like is it necessary that? Like, they're things that we've personally lived through? Or do you? Do you hear people like fictionalizing them as well? Well,

Kurian Tharakan
if fictionalization is fine, you can certainly see that in the Marvel Universe. Right? You know, and they, bro the whole story. In fact, every single superhero has a creation story. Yeah, they also have an arch villain that they fight. Right? You know, they do. All seven stories are embedded in the Marvel Universe, they have to be any story that's going to last especially a story complex has to have these seven stories embedded in it, that's just part of one disk. But the fictional I don't know, if you have to fictionalize anything, as a startup, probably best that you don't. But you should adhere to some basic principles about why you're doing this. And it can't be just about making money. Because that's not a sufficient enough reason making money is a result of doing other things. And if you, you know, if you want to do a sustainable income stream, then you are going to have to have a sustainable set of values that go into belief systems that could develop into identity, right, that eventually create products and services that transform people's lives. And if you want to make you know, a little bit of money, transform a few people's lives, you want to make a lot of money, transform millions of people's lives. You know, and so everything's about value creation, and value. And

Adam Liette
it's interesting, you brought up Marvel, because I'm a, I have teenage boys. So Marvel is in on in our house all the time. And I watched like the whole series, front to back with my boys. And what's interesting about that, is I found like, my perception of the Marvel superhero, or the DC superhero, is almost directly related to how good their enemy is. Yeah, yeah, you know, the best superheroes had the best enemies. And the worst superheroes are fighting like a cat, or something. And the reason I came to that this has dawned on me was when we get to Story number four, the enemy we face, like it has to be a compelling enough enemy. It has to get at people's core of their soul in order for them to feel that so I think like picking the right enemy could be like one of the hidden little things that we're if we're thinking like too soft or too broad, or not something that's compelling enough, we're missing the boat on that opportunity that's in the enemy, right?

Kurian Tharakan
You only rise to the level of your challenge. Right, well, yeah, only rise to the level of your challenge. And so the other part of that Iyanla Van Zandt said this and I always found her to be very interesting. She was a Oprah Winfrey protege one time and she says you cannot rise past your level of self esteem. Okay, so those are two things if you take a look at that both of those stories are embedded in the seven. And so the challenge he faces the enemy we face and your what is that level of self esteem has to be about our identity, beliefs or values. You know, and you really believe in who you are as people and what you aspire to what you hold sacred? And between those two things that is the the sphere of influence that you have to grow within? Hmm.

Adam Liette
Wow. It's not often on like on an interview, but you have me there, because my mind is just going 300 miles a minute right now trying to catch up with the ideas that that's coming to it and guess if or listeners if that's you, I get it because I want to get start brainstorming right away. Like when we're when we are leading our organizations, or when we're leading our people? Is it a matter of repetition of these stories? Are we even layering on top of them? So if you have the, the big idea who you'll become? Are you looking at the transformation from multiple angles? Or is it just like? Is it one core story and maybe some variants? Or how are we doing like, if we think of like, depth of our story,

Kurian Tharakan
the story has to be functionally relevant and emotionally significant to the audience that ends the individual audience lens, right, one set of eyes at a time, one set of ears at a time. And so you know, you can tell the same story to an audience of 100 people, and you're gonna have 150 variants of that story, maybe 350 variants, right? Because they hear different things and what's what's relevant to them. In the US, right now, you have two big political parties, Democrats and the Republicans, right, they're gonna hear the same story. And they will come up with completely different meanings for what the same set of facts are. So the facts are undisputed. But the meaning of what those facts are, is going to be very, very different, depending on whether you're on the left side or the right side of the political spectrum. Here's a very simple, simple one to illustrate that. Wind power is good. Okay, that's the end. That's just an opinion, right? It's not even status set of facts. But if you say wind power is good, and you know, you can immediately say that wind power is going to steal millions of oil and gas jobs, you know, from, from the drilling sector, from the oil and gas sector in the United States right now. So no, wind power is not good is bad. But the flip side of it, is it wind power is going to allow for energy sustainability. You know, in, in the in the province, we're not going to I'm sorry, in the country, we're not going to be as reliant on foreign sources of oil. Well, that's good. Right. So this one statement, and even if you're conservative, you know, just you both sides are very true, depending on what the lenses and the lenses destroying industries, or creating energy self sufficiency, and you're a conservative. Yeah,

Adam Liette
well, part of that is the part of that is the enemy that you're facing, right? Like is the enemy that we're facing instability and uncertainty and not having control over our own resources? Or is the enemy climate change, or this the Saudi Saudi Arabia or whatever, like it's picking the enemy? Yeah.

Kurian Tharakan
So by changing the story, you change the lens, which changes the perspective and the resume. The story is the lens.

Adam Liette
And this is where the complex starts to have that exact lining and those connecting points, because you're telling something that has multiple appeals, it's like a good book or a good film, it hits you at multiple different levels, and they're all neatly tied together. And

Kurian Tharakan
the thing was, you know, like, you know, if you we, I don't see this as much anymore, but you know, in the 70s and 80s, you had all these cults, you know, in the 70s and 80s, used to be the Moonies and it could have been the Harry Krishna, Harry Krishna, it's gonna be a lot of different things, right. And the wonderful thing about these calls is that they relieve you have the heavy lifting of critical thought. Right, that's what they do, because they've got an answer for everything. They have an absolute answer for everything. So whatever the question is, there's an answer for it. And one of the things about to know cults is cults don't want people that have that are weak in their whatever it is, you know, weak minded, weak willed, weak emotionally, they actually want productive people. They want bright people emotionally assert of, you know, you know, intact mentally, all those kinds of things. And the reason why is because that's the only way they can be productive. They can't have a whole bunch of people that are sucking them dry, right, because they can't get themselves going. So they need people to carry the stories forward. So what they're really looking for pas people who are ready to be spoon fed the stories. For whatever reason, it doesn't matter what the reason is, right? There's something some void in them at that point, that they are hung. I agree for the stories to be faithful. And once they get the stories, it fits so neatly into these voids in their psyche, that suddenly everything comes alive for them. Because these are the truths that they have been searching for this entire thing. That's why it comes alive.

Adam Liette
And it's the whatever emptiness whatever they're missing, that allows for that truth to be inserted into them. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, it's a void. And it's an opening. And it, it's funny how, like, the seven stories kind of match nicely with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and in a certain way, they're, they're filling these needs that we physiologically and biologically have as human beings. And it's, we can't change that. That's not who we are. And what's interesting is, there was one particular quote, I pulled from your book, it really got to me. And it says, when someone loses their story, it is almost always because when someone loses their way, it is almost always because they have lost their story, when they regain their story, they will regain their way absolutely

Kurian Tharakan
correct every single time. Every single time. If you ever had, like, you know, we, we've all had those dark, more dark nights of the soul. Ya know, and I remember in my early 30s, you know, nothing was working. Nothing. Gay. And then prior to that I was a reasonably successful guy in my 20s. But, but I lost that story, not as I was doing everything. Did you choose the right career path? Why aren't you married yet? You should have a lot more money in the bank, whatever the problem was, nothing is working. And it took me you know, a little while before I could regain the story in the region. And the story isn't the entire story to begin with. The first story you regain is that first footstep story, you know, that very first solid footstep, and oh, now I can feel some traction. Okay, and then that's the story, one lens, footstep story two, then it might be leap story three. Now, these three stories now form part of a story narrative and narrative complex. And you can start building on the stories to eventually and you know, eventually Here I am, right, doing doing things, I love things that writing books, my second book is about to come out, you know, in the fall, and, you know, just enjoying what you're, what you're doing. And, you know, what I'm doing today is exactly what I thought I wanted to do in my 20s. In university, I had no idea the level of work or the knowledge or the understanding that it took to, to get to here, I just thought you did it. That's how naive I was. Right? And that part of the naivety is what cross caused a crisis in my 20s. In my late 20s, early 30s. And you had to re put you had to put that foundation back underneath you as to what this all meant. What did this all mean? And, you know, one of the things that I tell a lot of my marketing is, especially with startups is to help them regain their mojo. So they have to regain. You have to wind them up again, to get going and or why Why have they lost their way? In this in this in this process, right? And so this idea of where they're going to go, how they're going to get there, why they're doing it to begin with, okay, and making sure all those things line up. That's the basis of anything they are going to create as a product to sell. Unless they have that foundation in place first, because entrepreneurship is a really tough road. super tough road, right? Building a company is a super tough road. And so you have to have a reason beyond making money to get through the hard times. Yeah, you know, that's how you bridge it's a mental bridge, emotional spiritual bridge. And, you know, unless you have that you will be crushed under the weight of the obligations of running the business.

Adam Liette
Hmm. And I think it's doubled down when the story of your brands, yeah, entrepreneurship can suck sometimes. Let's acknowledge that. When your Y is strong enough, and you're retelling it often enough. I've often said on this show, especially when I do a solo episode that half the time I do an episode to remind myself about something and I'm sharing it with my audience. And I think There's something to living from such truth that constantly brings you back to it and keeps you on that TrueNorth and reminding yourself of the why.

Kurian Tharakan
Yeah. And, and it's got to be about something, there's got to be a moral mission, there's got to be a moral mission, right. And so one of the missions might be, you know, we well, for our social life, it would be to enable Shopify store owners, you know, to reach their best potential true potential. I'm butchering that statement a little right. But you know, ultimately, that's what it is. But the moral mission has to be something bigger than us doing that to make money. The moral mission, you know, is embedded in that statement, by me take it even a little further. Because the stories that we have right now are, you know, people that we're starting off with, from $0 a month to 5000 10,000 a month, and they're now doing a million and a half $2 million a year in sales. After a couple of years in the program, I do three years licit program, and the money isn't the point. The money is the point, financial freedom is the point the ability to to create something that is of legacy, the ability to have their children have a future, you know, with their mom still being able to stay at home, you know, and then and their future is completely taken off, Carol got the ability to build something to give down to that next generation. Those are all moral mission aspects that are beyond I did $50,000 this month in Shopify sales, right? That's a small company, right. But you know, for a, for an individual that had, you know, $500 a month in sales just a year and a half earlier, this is the promised land. And we tell them, that's not even the start. You know, that's not even Where are you going to end up, we're gonna, we're going to take this even higher than that. And it's bigger, it's bigger than money. It's about all these other things that come along with it, that are actually in front of the money. The money is a result of all these other things.

Adam Liette
Yeah, the money lets you do more things more of your true calling. Because now you have more resources to do it reminds me that the movie Wolf of Wall Street, like, you know, well, yeah, I figured their money was better in my pockets. I knew how to spend. Yeah. I bought. Yes. Dude, I can talk all day and night about this and get into exact stories. But I think like, where I'm sitting right now is I'm, I'm barbarigo brainstorm, like full development of this. If someone's listening, like, how do I even get started on this pathway, obviously, like origin and stuff? Like how do you recommend people like build these? Is it a matter of brainstorming? Or is it like a very deliberate method of building out this seven phase story,

Kurian Tharakan
the book itself will give you all several stories, and also stories that have to be infused in a culture. So the first half of the book is all about culture. And culture is the operating system of the company. Right? You know, it's how you make decisions, how you create value, how you create an artistic level of whatever you do, right? You know, you take, you know, like a hot dog in the hands of a hot dog vendor on Fifth Avenue, if there is such a thing in New York, is a completely different experience with that same set of materials in the hands of a three star Michelin chef. So how do you how do you raise that, to that level there, right? Religion would be another aspect of culture and religion in this case is valid values and beliefs, right? The customs and traditions, the language that we use the social structure, those are the seven pillars of culture, and then you take those seven pillars of culture, and then you infuse them with the stories. And that's what creates the direction for the ship to sail forward. Right. And between those two things. One can't exist without the other. Yeah. Culture. Without stories, it doesn't have any fuel. The stories without culture doesn't have an engine. Yeah. So you need both of these things together in order to drive the ship forward. So okay, so you were asked me, How do you get started, right? Get the book. And if you don't want to get the book immediately, go go to my website, download the seven stories is on the right side. I don't even ask you for email address, right? Just download the book. I'm sorry, the infographic it'll give you all seven of the stories, you're gonna recognize them good because they are just a part of every culture that the world has ever known because the seven stories are primal. They are primal. stories. And we all recognize that we need to have it if we are missing it, we go seeking it. Right. That's the thing. That's how primal do. I

Adam Liette
think it's so interesting. I had an interview earlier today with a gentleman who, like his passion is reading and like people getting more out of their books, like how to actually apply what they're reading and redo with intention. And that episode comes out a couple episodes before this one. But go back to episode, what number will it be? I'm not gonna guess go back to Nick Hutchinson's episode and feel like crashed another book that Adams recommending Yes. And apply what Nick teaches when you read this, because it's, it's this is probably one of the most like deliberate books I'm hearing about in like, Do this, do that, and go attack it. And as someone who is a humongous fan of stories, humongous fan of culture. And I'm even learning different ways of button fusing them and how to like rack and stack these things in a way to really create the impact that I think we all want. Or we say we want if you want this time to do the work, make it happen. And I can tell you, I'm not going to be disappointed. I might be about three and a night when I'm still working through it. But it's going to be from a place of intention. And again, that's in line with my beliefs, identity and my values, isn't it? See how that ties all in together? Love it. This has been incredible I every every like I said every I constantly seek out more information about storytelling, because I feel like I'm still just hitting the tip of the iceberg. And there's so much more to go. So I can't thank you enough, Carrie. And this has been absolutely tremendous. And where can the listeners find out more about you? We've talked about the book, obviously, I'll link to that in the in the show notes. So the

Kurian Tharakan
book is called seven essential stories, charismatic leaders tell us available on Amazon. And if you want to catch up with me on my website, strategy peak.com, strategist and mountain peak.com. And I'm also on LinkedIn. So there's lots of ways to catch up.

Adam Liette
So if you have to leave us with one story that will propel the listener to action. What's a story you can tell here? The

Kurian Tharakan
you putting me on the spot here, there's 1000s of stories or hundreds of stories that could do it, you know, but I think ultimately, the stories I would tell would be about persistence. By persistence, you know, so there's so many different examples of entrepreneurs, where they were just about to give up. And because they were able to just keep going, I had a, one of my, one of my what is it? authors that I know here in the city. He's very much about keeping his word, even to himself, perhaps especially to himself. And so he's written a number of different books over the years. And when he wrote one of his very first ones, he promised himself that he was going to send out the manuscript, you know, for somebody to or to publish the book to 100 different publishers. And you know, he's getting rejection letter after rejection letter after rejection and a love letter. And he's up until like, you know, like 7882 publishers just reject, reject rejected, and it would have been so easy to give up at that point is so pointless. No one's no one's biting down. But because he had made a promise to himself. He sent out the remaining 18 letters. His publisher was found in the last 18 You know, and it's not the way life works. It's not the way life works, you know, like, it's always those kind of things. That you know, success is very, very anticlimactic. You know, you don't revel in it for you know, for years at a time, months of time, or even days all the time. You know, it's very anticlimactic. Because at that moment, you go go do the acceptance speech, get the Oscar, get the Emmy, whatever it is, and you know, it's done the next day, you're back to, you know, auditioning for roles again, right, even though you have something behind you, but now you have a higher a higher bar to aspire to. So you really have to find purpose, not in the destination, but in the stories along the way. And you can cliche it by saying the journey is the actual story, but unless you find joy in those moments, right, you're not going to find it at those, you know, end junctures. Because those are so fleeting moments, such fleeting moments that you can't possibly find any lasting joy and the joy is going to be found all the way along through their, to their ask there.

Adam Liette
I love it. It's so beautiful. And so true. I have a award on my wall that was like, dreaming of for two years and went up to go get it and it was over. All gone, just like that. And the next day, we went back to work. And yet the story of getting back to work is almost better than the story of receiving it. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. Right. I love it. Well, I am super inspired brother to tell you that much. And I can't thank you enough for your time. And now I have a this is like the fourth book I bought today this getting dangerous. So it's gonna be a good day.

Kurian Tharakan
Really good. I like that. Terrific. Adam. Thanks for having me on your show.