Episode 19: Mastering Time Travel In Storytelling

Story Fruition (00:05.74)
back. All right, so this is going to be a really fun module and it's called time travel. And it's really important because people are jumping around in time when they're telling stories all the time. But most people, they don't do it really well. Some cliche ways that I hear time travel are cut to, fast forward to, and rewind to.

This isn't Hollywood moviemaking at this point. You're storytelling. And I really do believe that there are more creative ways that we can time travel. And so for instance, you can do things like, in an instant, I was suddenly six years old when I remembered blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or instantly, I am back when I was six years old. That's another way you could do it. Or suddenly, I'm six years old and...

I can't believe blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you could even say, my mind flashes to when I was six years old. Great. So much more powerful than rewind, fast forward, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So that is my personal opinion. Now, if you do it, that's fine. But I do think, you know, it does sound odd. It just doesn't, people don't talk like that all the time. So anyways, that's my, that's how most people are doing time parallel. But let's talk about.

Easy ways to do time travel more cleanly. that would be, let's start with age. So if I say I'm not, it's 1981 and I'm 16 years old and I'm filling out yet another college application. Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The movie's going, you know, I'm started the movie. Then I, I fill that out and now I have the time travel and I could say by the time I'm 24 years old, I've learned that my degree is more valuable than I even anticipated. Clean.

16 to 24, we just jumped time. A less effective way is when I say I'm 16 and then I say eight years later, I'm learning that my degree, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why is the second one not as good? Obviously, because you make them do math. And not all of us are that good at math. Like two or three years we can handle. But once you start going beyond that, you're starting to get calculator mode. OK. And that means wonder, wander effect could be going in because they're doing math.

Story Fruition (02:24.751)
I personally would be like 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. I'm a finger counter and there's a lot of finger counters out there. So just be clean with it. Okay. Just be clean with it. Eras, eras are a time, a moment in time, right? You have your fifties, your sixties, your seventies, your eighties. And what I love about that is that when you're, when you're setting a story up, you want to pull things out of that era that would delight the audience in hearing.

So when you go to the Storytellers Mind movie book, okay, what this everything's about, chapter 10 really gets into time travel. And there are pages on page 97 where I actually give some prompts or some suggestions of what you could be pulling out from the 50s all the way up till today. And I talk about political people that might've been in office or the music, the television.

the hobbies, the recreation that people would be doing. Those are the things that when you're in an era that you're gonna wanna pull out of so that we can all relate to it. So I have a story that I tell called She's Soufflé and it starts off like it's 1972, I'm seven years old and I'm in the kitchen with my dad and my two sisters and my mother and we're nervous.

My mother is tapping her fingers on the orange Formica counter as she stands next to her olive green oven staring at her cheese souffle.

You got the whole room set. Okay. As soon as I say orange from Marika, everyone sees those counters. As soon as I say olive green oven, boom, you're in it. You are in it. You may have even seen a matching green refrigerator and guess what there was. Okay. So that's what I mean by like pulling things out of the era. So if you need help on that, do some research, you know, you could, as you're composing a story, you might be telling the

Story Fruition (04:26.029)
the founder story of your own company, maybe your company was founded in 1950. When you are crafting that story, you may want to make references to the types of cars that were there and the political spectrum or landscape. Just think about that. What can you pull in that will reflect the time era that you're in? Okay, great. So,

Let's talk a little bit about also geography jumping. So we've got time travel covered by age, by era, by nice transitions. And then geography jumping needs the same respect because if you jump in all over the map, then everyone else is jumping all over the map in their imaginations. I literally will see when someone does this, where they mentioned too many cities instead of just the cities that they may need to talk about. One, it's meandering.

Two, it's not necessary. And three, I only see little red pins from Google Maps in my head. That may be happening to other people. So again, you're kind of diluting the act of listening because you're literally all over the map. So just try to be very clean and concise. And if you can get time travel and geography jumping done well, your storytelling is already stepping up. But the final thing I want to point out before we see an example is that

I want you to try to speak in present tense, even though you might be talking about something that happened in the 70s. Did you notice that? said it's 1971 or it's 1972. I'm seven years old and I'm nervous. I'm with my dad and my sisters and my mother. And she is tapping her fingers on the orange Formica counter as she looks at the olive green oven.

watching her Chi Souffle. Now, the reason why that is more effective is because I'm pulling you in to my time space reality and we're sharing it there together. We're literally time traveling together. Now, most people do it in past tense. Almost everybody does it in past tense. Why I don't think that's as vivid and as fun is that it takes everybody out a little bit. You're not even in it completely.

Story Fruition (06:46.178)
You're talking in past tense. And then so are they. They're in past tense with you versus when you're talking in present tense. Now everyone's in. You are in control. So I'll try just another example so you can kind of see the difference. So it's 1972 and I was seven years old and I was watching my mother in the kitchen and I'm with my dad and my sisters and I was with my dad and my sisters and we were really nervous. Yeah. My mom is staring at

her cheese souffle in the olive green oven. Okay. Now I don't need to do this verbatim, but do you see the difference of past tense versus present tense? Try it. It takes practice. I'm getting really good at talking in present tense that I actually struggled a little bit because I had to go back to the past tense because that's an old muscle I used to work. So present tense, present tense, present tense. Okay. Now we're going to bring in

a guest here for this module. I this backstory for Dr. Noor Ali is that she has a very robust and complicated journey that she's had from the time she was five years old and was planning to become a doctor to actually ending up in an entirely different career path in health insurance. And she's become an expert at this, but her

medicine career definitely helped her become successful in her business career. Watch for the time travel, especially watch for the time travel. Notice how notice how she's going to be being precise with her age and then also watch how she geography jumps. So this is a really good example of what we've been discussing on here. And when it's done, I'm just going to do a summary and I'll see you right back here.

I'm five years old sitting on my grandfather's lap and we're reading our favorite book together. It's Grey's Anatomy, the number one anatomy textbook for medical students worldwide. I've got hearts in my eyes as I look up at my dada. He looks down at me and says, you're going to be a doctor someday, just like me, aren't you? Yes, dada, I am. The wheels are in motion.

Story Fruition (09:10.561)
My educational trajectory is fast-tracked and propelled into a track towards medicine. In middle school, I'm taking high school courses. In high school, I'm done taking advanced college courses. I'm 18 years old, about to start my college career living in the Big Apple when I get a phone call. Hello? Dada's died. What?

My father looks at us and says, we all have to move back to Bangladesh now. Before I know it, I'm standing in 118 degrees, sweltering heat in the middle of my all women's college campus in Bangladesh, this time clutching my very own Grey's Anatomy. When I'm tripping over chickens and goats in New York City, I would have been eating this off a halal, picket and rice cart. Dada, where are you? What is this? Where am I?

My world is upside down. I'm too skinny because I can't eat the food. I can't communicate with my peers. I'm struggling just to survive. The only thing that brings me comfort is my education. So I dive in deep. One of my professors recognizes my ambition and says, wow, you just time 16 minutes and 30 seconds for the C-section. No one's ever done that before.

I was on a roll. In my free time, I founded an internationally award-winning community project that serves free antenatal care to slum-dwelling women all over Bangladesh. My work was awarded on an international stage by the United Nations in 2014.

Story Fruition (10:55.548)
I'm 23 years old and in my final year of medical school and love is the last thing on my mind. A man that I met six years earlier find me halfway across the globe. He asked my father if we can go on a date. Sure, if you marry her. Okay, can I have some time to think about this? Yeah, I'll give you 15 minutes. That was on a Wednesday.

By Friday evening, we were married. That road showed up pretty quickly, but I took it and I never looked back. The beginning of the road is rocky, filled with uneven potholes, long distance trouble, but I'm thriving in my surgical career. Two years go by and it's time for me to move back to New York City to be with my husband. The road gets rockier.

I was a superstar surgeon in Bangladesh, but in order for me to practice surgery in the States, I had to pass the United States medical licensing exams. On paper, I just look like a high school graduate. I'm mopping floors at my first job in America at a subway sandwich shop. And all I can think about is this exam. To me, it's like this enormous fire breathing dragon. I'm terrified.

The speed of studying for this exam is melting my armor.

Story Fruition (12:27.799)
I finally get my test results back.

and it's not what I expected. I missed it by one question. Now what am I gonna do? My path's just changed again. Hello, sunny Florida. I'm 26 years old, living with my in-laws, trying out different careers and nothing makes me feel worthy until this opportunity for health insurance. Hmm.

Health insurance? They never taught this in medical school. I grab it and I dive in deeper. In my second week of training, I'm handed this medical underwriting guide. Amy, next to me, is Googling and looking up terminology like cholecystectomy. It's cholecystectomy, resection of the gallbladder, indicated in cholelithiasis, in some cases of chronic cholecystitis. It's like I'm reading Grey's Anatomy again.

and I'm fluent in this language. And that's when I knew that my road just merged into my path. My medical career, my understanding of global healthcare systems, and now my experience in health insurance were now coming together to create the new Dr. Noor Healthcare Advisor, my very own personal brand. Since then, I reinvented the customer experience journey for purchasing health insurance.

Using my insider's lens, I work with trailblazing entrepreneurs and help them access quality customizable health plans. The value that I bring to the table is my clinical know-how. So I can instantly evaluate what coverage you need and sometimes more importantly, what you don't. I've traveled on many roads, less traveled, but I have always trusted in myself that I'm going to figure it out. And that's the richness of life.

Story Fruition (14:25.048)
Every time I see that story, just, I still get the goosebumps because one, it was such a joy to work with her to, you know, piece her whole life together and then make it scene by scene. was just really joyous. And, and she didn't even know how powerful her story really was. Notice some of the time travel. Notice how she was like, I'm five years old and Pat and spoken present tense. I'm five years old and I'm sitting on my dad's lap. Okay. Boom.

We had Grey's Anatomy. Grey's Anatomy was kind of a recurring character throughout that story, but she was very deliberate in when she was jumping time. We did a montage in there too. So when we did her school years, notice when she was in elementary school, she was here. By the time I was in middle school, I was here. In high school, I was doing blank. By the time I get to college, we probably passed nine, no, we passed probably 15 years of her life.

in a montage. Think of it like a movie. You know how they have people just, no one's talking, it's just spliced together and they're showing the heroes learning something. That's a montage. That's how we do a time montage in storytelling. So I hope you enjoyed that. And also notice I'm going to throw in one last thing other than that her geography jumping was also really clean and very precise. And she took nice breaths before she would change gears.

Because when she had to, when the scene where she's in the subway sandwiches and she's mopping floors after having been, you know, honored by the United Nations for her work with pregnant women in the slums, she's mopping floors in New York. And she's so stressed out about that test. That technically was a very difficult scene for Dr. Noor. And when we came up with the metaphor of the dragon,

We were then able to unpack dragon and melting armor, et cetera, into the words to really try to play what was going on inside her. She also slows her voice down. It's very genuine and a very vulnerable moment. But then she shifts gears and she says, my path changed again. Hello, sunny Florida, right? She was making very deliberate transitions to that new geography.

Story Fruition (16:48.854)
So I hope you enjoy it. So remember, age, eras, clean transitions, and precision with your geography, you will be a much better, more elevated storyteller because you also tell these stories vividly in present tense. Okay, thank you. See you at the next one.