How did we get clients that wanted the kind of work we truly wanted to produce? The other day, I was on a Zoom call with a young filmmaker who…
Today’s post is a little more personal. As 2020 winds down and we look forward to a more hopeful 2021, I wanted to reflect on an aspect of storytelling that…
So many companies have lost their way. Because they’ve lost their place in their own story. A story isn’t just a marketing tool that you can use to persuade customers…
We know that character driven stories do better than brand anthems and stories about abstract concepts. That’s a no brainer. What isn’t necessarily obvious to people, or at least what…
I’m surviving. There’ve been moments where these fires in Oregon have felt like the last straw, but I haven’t reached the psychological breaking point — yet. Aside from being tremendously…
Let me start with the end: we need to be featuring more BIPOC protagonists in our stories. Now, you might be thinking, “Ok Amina, tell me something I don’t know.”…
Chris Anderson of TED may have said it best, “Every meaningful element of human progress has happened only because humans have shared ideas with each other and then collaborated to…
A driver for my craft of storytelling has always been the science and the psychology of persuasion, how we use stories to shape hearts and minds and form the views…
My mission has pivoted amid the COVID-19 crisis. While I’m still using storytelling as what I consider to be one of the most effective tools for social change, I’m focusing…
Imagine the perfect scenario… you’ve got clients you love, work you believe in, a team you trust, work-life balance that’s sustainable… If this sounds like you, stop reading now and…
What do you do when you’ve got a skeptical audience? Do you talk to them differently? Or do you treat them the same way you would a “believer?” Consider these…
In 2014, my dad’s family doctor told him he was pre-diabetic. That meant he was on the path to diabetes but it wasn’t too late to turn things around. If…
I’ve spent a good portion of my day doing something, that while arguably productive, has nothing to do with my to-do list. And that’s at the expense of my to-do…
There’s one brilliant element people seem to be missing about Elon Musk’s PR stunt. There’s a lot of buzz out there about whether or not the glass demo mishap was…
Three days after I published my previous blog post about using storytelling to elicit cognitive ease, I found a study that, at first glance, contradicted something I shared in that…
Brains are lazy. It’s not an insult… it’s an evolutionary adaptation. We’re designed for efficiency, and when things feel easy, they also tend to feel pretty good. We’re rewarded by…
It’s a question that has fundamentally changed how I perceive the world. It started with photography but became much bigger than that. For a long long time, I’d been asking…
“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” This quote is the foundation of Simon Sinek’s book, Start With Why. It’s also the foundation of the…
It’s inevitable. At some point in our lives, we’re going to encounter a cheater — someone that’s willing to win at any cost, even at the expense of their integrity. It happens…
In Part I, we talked about how critical non-verbals are (visuals, environment, tone, body language, etc.) and how they’re often an afterthought when communicating a message. This leaves massive opportunities on…
Actions speak louder than words. In fact, I typed that verbatim in a previous post about observing your audiences’ actions in order to gauge what they believe or how they’ll act on…
In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman poses the following challenge: Glance at the image of this woman: As quickly as you saw her dark hair, you…
The key to growing as a person, losing weight, being more productive, and achieving success comes from understanding how habits work. According to Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of…
Attract the clients and projects that fuel your soul. Sometimes the hardest thing is to take your own advice. Sure, it’s easy to dispense to others, but how often do we…
Gotta Ask Yourself: How Intentional Is Your Plan? A few weeks ago, we were approached by a client to create a launch film for their new software product. They…
Logic Doesn’t Convert—Emotion Does. Back in 2006, filmmaker Tim Piper set out to tell the story of how a cosmetic product ad gets made. He teamed with Dove to do so….
An Analysis of Virality in Action. “Stop! Thief!” With just those opening words I was hooked. A woman chased after a young boy who had just stolen some items from…
Story Really Is Important. As you sit in a meeting with your boss—maybe they’re the CEO or the SVP of Marketing—they go on and on about quarterly goals. They’re ideas are as varied as they…
