00:00
Okay, so you have probably heard episodes one through three. I want to share a little bit more about me and who I am and how I got here and how I'm in a position to offer this to you with a whole lot of confidence. I have invited Elizabeth, yep, the same Elizabeth, to have a conversation with me, to lead a conversation with me. After all, what we do here is all about honest conversations.

00:27
Before you hear from her and me talking, I want to share a few things that might be helpful or useful or important for you to know. In episode 2, I talk about some of the problems that many of us are facing, and as part of that I included some of the work I've done, including the Suicide Noted Podcast, Grit True Stories That Matter, among other things, and I'm not going to list all of my accomplishments.

00:56
I have included in the show notes a link to my bio so you can get a better sense of some of the things I've done because it matters. I'm not just some dude who decided to try this thing out. It's been years in the making. And that also includes, and I don't talk much about this, but most of my life I've been a teacher. I've been in classrooms in the United States and some other countries teaching English as a second language, social studies, public speaking, and of course, story.

01:25
Not just any stories, but the hard ones. Maybe most important is I've gone through it. I haven't gone through what you've gone through, but I've gone through my own stuff. I continue to go through my own stuff and I've learned a lot. And no, I'm not the guy who's going to say I've been through the thing and now I'm going to help you get through the thing so you can be just like me. That's the kind of thing I see fairly often out there in the world of sort of online coaching.

01:55
coach. Or at least not that kind of coach. Not for what we're doing here and now. I am going through things. I continue to go through things. I, like you, do the very best I can. It's a process. And so no, as I've said earlier, I can't promise you that this is magically going to transform your life into some sort of perfect, ideal thing. What I can say is that it's helped me a lot.

02:23
And when I say it's helped me a lot, I mean me telling my stories and sharing them with specific people in my life. And I've also done it on public stages, though that is a little different. And of course, if you're curious about that, and you want to work on crafted stories, the kind that you present as part of a speech or just a story on its own, please reach out. Happy to talk to you more about that. But in me sharing my stories and helping others do it, in having these...

02:52
conversations, the honest ones, the raw ones, the sometimes difficult ones, I can tell you, with a lot of confidence, that it will help. Can I guarantee that absolutely? I can't. But the Suicide Noted podcast and all the work with Grit, True Stories That Matter, and the work we've been doing here, and some other projects, and just being alive for several decades and being involved in working with people who have

03:21
hard things to talk about. Yes, it helps. It really does. So let's start that conversation with me and Elizabeth. And if by the end of that conversation, you want to learn more about me or have any questions, as always, I'm happy to listen and I'm happy to share more.

Hey, Sean. Thanks for being willing to let your listeners and fans and potential clients get to know you. So I really need you to tell me why should people trust you to share their most personal or painful stories with?

03:50
I can't answer that. I think they need to hear from people who I've worked with. You know, Elizabeth, there are a lot of people who are not shy about talking about how fucking amazing they are. This might be a good time to tell everybody that, yeah, sometimes I curse. I'm from New York, maybe that's part of it, maybe it's not. I drop an F-bomb here and there. It is what it is. In any case.

04:18
I'm not really one of those people who brags and boasts all the time online or off. I like to do the work and I like if other people say good things and they often do. Part of me is like walked the walk in terms of both living and also talking with people and you'll either jive with how I roll or not. I can't know if someone should trust me because that's a dance. So I bring something that I hope they trust. You know, I might remind them of their brother-in-law who they hate and they're not going to open up.

04:47
And they have to be in a place or time. And it's not always the right time for people to open up. But if they're in the right place for a particular story or stories, uh, and I don't remind them of their brother-in-law, I'm sorry to pick on brother-in-laws. You know, I've done the work for years, so probably off to a pretty good start in terms of trust, you know, and I give a shit, I just give a shit. I make people feel less shitty and less alone. So that's a good reason to trust you.

So what is your ideal client? Are there a particular kind of stories that would be a deal for you to work with or?

05:17
Just the stories or experiences that whatever reason for a particular person, they need to get out. And so when I talk, it's in an earlier episode about like the hard stuff, people define that however they want to define it, right? So anybody who can identify with the idea that there's something they've gone through and it could be more than one thing, that they need to tell at least one other person, they're a good client.

05:45
I mean, Elizabeth, we can take you as an example. I know you're not a typical client because we've known each other for some time, but you've had these conversations with your siblings about leaving the church and you want at least one more time to share with them in a way where they might listen, right? Because you can't have these conversations. You've tried, they're supercharged. It doesn't work, but you're not done. There's more you want to share with them. You love them. And so, you know, I think about somebody who just reached out to me recently, she's a sort of different situation.

06:12
and she wants to speak about things that she's gone through in her life. And she actually wants to only share it with some of her nieces and nephews. And she's got a lot of nieces and nephews after she dies. So she's got to coordinate how she's going to do that with her sister, I believe. But that's another really good client. I mean, she is somebody who does not want to or cannot speak with them. Many of them are young, but it's important to her that they know some things. Right. I think about some of our other clients, a woman.

06:40
who was estranged from some of her family members for years. And she wants to share some things. I can't share in detail because naturally this stuff is private, but wants to let them know some things about her, some things she feels that have been misunderstood over the years. And so great client. I don't love that word client, by the way, but that's the word I am using. I think about a suicide attempt survivor who we talked to a couple of months ago and she did not want to come on the Suicide Noted podcast.

07:09
but she still wants to share with some people in her life, her family, her husband, and a couple of her kids that she tried and what was around that and how she felt and that she loves them. And she cannot have the conversation with them. She simply can't. She's tried, it doesn't work, but it doesn't mean she does not want to communicate with them the things or some of the things that she's gone through. I think about an older man who we spoke with who is nearing his death and he wanted to share some things.

07:38
that he's not that proud of, but he doesn't want to die with those secrets. He wants them to know that because that's part of who he is. I think about one of the first conversations I had for this work. We started in late last year with a military veteran. He has gone through a lot of things, as you might imagine, and he wanted to share with friends and family things that he can't, he just, he just can't share with them in person, in real life, so to speak.

08:08
And he's struggling and he wants them to know this stuff. That actually segues nicely into the next question, which are what are some compelling reasons or motivating factors for why you want to get people to share their hard stories with the world or even with a few select people.

What purpose do you think it serves? I think it helps improve overall wellbeing and mental health when people share their hard stories. And do you think it equally serves both both the listener and the storyteller.

08:37
Okay, that's a few questions. So let me do my best to answer. Why do I think people should share it? I mean, look, if you need me to convince you that you need to share it, you're not somebody I'm going to work with right now. If you need me to convince you, I get it. You might need a little nudge. Sure. You might feel like you don't know me. Sure. Of course. If you're thinking about

09:03
Like I haven't gone through something very hard or that I would wanna share with anyone in my life. I'm not your guy. The people that I think are gonna or have come into this little ecosystem of people that already know they've gone through some stuff, they already know they wanna share it. They usually have a pretty good idea of who they wanna share it with. I wanna talk about this stuff with so-and-so before I die or before they die or before another 10 years goes by or I feel like I wanna get this out because it's brought on a lot of pain, shame.

09:33
and they recognize that. You're right. I told you, I'm not very good at marketing and I'm not very good at convincing people to do something. My role here is just to say, here's what we do. I said this in the very beginning, this is what we do. I wanna give you as much information as I can so you can make a decision if you wanna work with us now or in the future. I can't necessarily speak to if it serves equally both listener and teller. I think listener and person who's sharing, call them a storyteller or whatever, but.

09:59
Of course, for the right people, it absolutely serves them and it serves those they're sharing it with. Sure. I think that one of the ways that it could potentially serve them both is that it could be a conversation starter. Right. Over the course of doing the Suicide Noted podcast in particular, a good number of them later shared with me after the podcast, which is a public podcast, came out that people in their lives who otherwise would never have heard them talking about this stuff heard it.

10:27
They didn't find that by accident. They found it because the person shared it with them. I don't know how all of those conversations went, but it did serve to start a conversation that maybe was, but it's never going to happen because this podcast averaged about an hour long, right? Hours is a lot of information. You don't usually get that in a conversation, particularly when you don't want to talk about something, can't talk about something an hour, you don't get a minute. As far as mental health, you'd ask the question about that. Mental health has a tricky thing to measure.

10:54
I think when you are ready to talk about whatever it is you want to talk about and it's not too much of a wound too soon for some. Yeah, of course it's helpful. No doubt. Mental health is part of that.

Can you explain to your listeners the difference between a story that is raw and purely from the heart of a storyteller and when a story has been crafted to achieve a certain purpose? I could talk for days and days about that, but no one wants to hear it. We use the word story in a lot of different ways.

11:24
The way I'm using it to be very clear, there's no fiction here. A lot of people will say they associate the word story with fairy tales. Oh, he just told that was a story as if it was a lie. So that's just the limitations of language. Everything here is completely true, raw, honest. The work we're doing here, we call it a kind of story evoked from the heart. What a crafted story is, is it's got a beginning, middle, end. It takes place in a period of time, which if you're listening to this and you're curious about this work, it might sound like, no, no, no, that's exactly what I'm going to be doing.

11:54
with crafted stories. It's just you talking. It's usually somewhat presentational. You're often on a stage of some kind, be it virtual or in person. And they can be super challenging because you're often trying to, sometimes I'll have an hour conversation with someone and from that we have one crafted story. So if you're not familiar with that world, it blows your mind because you're like, there's no way I could fit it all in seven minutes, for example. Or I have a gazillion stories, which might be true. That's really the difference is a crafted story is crafted.

12:23
and a non-crafted story is more conversational and a little bit more sounding like how we talk in real life.

So do you think it's possible to get to the heart of a story without conversation?

Yes, and I think it's rare and hard. I think it's possible, but it's really hard and really rare and it's almost always way better when you don't do it alone, even if you can find it.

What led you to a place that you're in now where you would like to help people tell important stories that matter? And is there a criteria by which you, Sean, judge what matters?

12:49
I've already shared another episode, and if I haven't, I'll remind myself too, of what led me to be here, right? A sort of, let's call it a mini origin story, an origin story of sorts, to help people tell important stories that matter. Is there a criteria by which I judge what matters? That's a really good question. I don't know. I think the storyteller knows.

13:16
When we're in the world of crafted story, I'm far more opinionated about what quality is and what will work on a stage. This work, it's different. But is the purpose to get people to share stories a matter, yes, if it matters to them and matters to the people hearing them. The way I feel about it is completely irrelevant. However, if I'm the one, and in this case I am, facilitating a conversation, I think some people might be surprised that it's not really a Q&A, it's a conversation. There's a starter set of questions that people get to think about.

13:45
Sometimes they need that, sometimes they don't. It's not set because it can't be set because a conversation isn't set. It's not how it works. So I can start with a question like, why do you wanna share this with whomever or tell us or tell them, depending on the point of view, if you're talking to them or me, that's a choice that clients have. What happened, for example? What happened? But when they start talking about that, I don't know exactly what's gonna come out of their mouth. I have more questions. We go in different directions.

14:13
And then we do some editing because sometimes the directions we agree upon, like, ah, no, that's not really part of what you're okay. No problem. But we go there. And the point is, I think that people are surprised that they sometimes go to places they didn't think they would go to or went to a place they didn't realize it mattered, but it mattered or a part of the story that was not being included.
The reason I asked that question is because what we've learned as humans over time is that sociology and.

14:41
psychology and forensics interviewing and all of that stuff, we've come to realize how heavily biased the person who's doing the research and how that affects the outcome of the research is. It's just all part of emotional intelligence and self-awareness and how that affects everything that we, everyone that we interact.

How do you keep your personal judgments about what matters from influencing what matters to the person that you're working with? And is there a way that you can explain that process?

15:09
I don't think it's a process. I think it's just a way of, it's a mindset. It's a way of thinking.

Conversation is a process.

All right, so the conversation is a process and I don't judge people. It's that simple. Whether some really hard or difficult or bad things have happened to you or you've done the thing yourself, you are the person responsible for causing harm or pain to others or whatever else might come up.

15:39
for the sake of this work, because there's nowhere else to go to talk about it. Not nowhere, very few. So it doesn't matter. In a private little bubble, do I condone you hurting people? Of course not. It's irrelevant. It doesn't matter what you've done. It doesn't matter how you feel about what you've done. This is not my role. My role is to bring it out. Whoever it is that works with me, bring it out. I don't judge people for trying to kill themselves. I would not have a podcast. It would suck. That's just not what I do.

16:09
Do I have personal judgment? Sure, but I don't think they've interfered. No one's ever told me. Maybe that time will come. It's about evoking or bringing out stuff. And I think often people are guarded for understandable reasons. So they're trying to find a place or a person or something in which to talk about it. But it is a process in that as that happens, even if they know me a little bit or more than a little bit, they get more comfortable.

16:36
And when that happens, they often share more. I'm not asking people to share every little thing because some stuff doesn't need to be shared with anyone ever. But what do you want to say to this person? And it's usually not a 30 second thing or they probably don't need me.

What do you think might be the hardest stories to tell?

The ones you don't want to tell.

Yeah, good answer.

17:04
Like for me, the ones I don't want to tell, some of them won't be told. I mean, I can't guarantee what I'll feel like in five years, but they're not going to be told. But you know what? There's all sorts of shit I want to tell certain family and friends, some of which I've told by kind of doing this work, even though I can't actually be the facilitator and the person talking. Right. So it's hard for me to find people who can guide those conversations.

I think one of the biggest problems in our fucking world is that people tweak the truth, don't tell the truth and keep secrets. Right. I want to be able to, for example, explain to them,

17:33
my family, why I chose to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I'm no longer a Mormon. I want them to know why. But guess what? To my shock and utter dismay a couple years ago at a family reunion, I started to tell them about this. And they're just like, first they have these ridiculous retorts, and then they're just shut down. They killed the conversation, as you put it.

18:03
We had a conversation in episode three. Are you going to share that with any of them or is it one or two people in particular thinking about again?

18:27
I can't force them to listen to it, but I would hope That at some point in their life and unfortunately it will most likely be as they're nearing death because for some Inexplicable reason to for my brain to comprehend people want to wait until well, they don't want to they just do right? Well, they're dying to suddenly start reconciling all these things they haven't come to terms with. So most likely come the end of their death, they're gonna start questioning their own beliefs and what's gonna happen after the day. And by the way, why did Elizabeth, what was it that she was saying in the back of the truck that day, talking about why she left the church? Oh, suddenly it has relevance. I want them to have that.

18:57
Is there anybody in the world who, we reverse it, you're the one receiving the information. Elizabeth, hey, long time no talk. I did this thing with a guy named Sean. It's a really interesting conversation. I think you might wanna hear it. Who is that coming from? What's it about?

Pretty much the hardest thing possible just came to my mind. And I would wanna hear Eric London explaining how he rationalized sexually abusing my daughter for three years when he knew that it was the most unfathomable thing to his friend, me.

19:23
who had gone through such horrors in her life and was at this time going through trying to untangle it all and be sane. I want to understand how he was able to do that.

You want me to reach out to him?

He's in prison.

I could probably still reach out to him.

Yeah, I do. I want you to.

19:52
So if you could have one superpower, any type of superpower, what would be your one superpower? To be so wealthy that I didn't have to charge for this work. That's a great answer. But it's not gonna happen, not anytime soon. And I do think there's some value to, or sort of truth to the fact that people do, they take shit more seriously when they're paying for it. I don't know if that's true. I think in large part it is.

So why is your social media presence so meh?

20:21
Because I don't like social media. I just don't want to spend time on those platforms. Probably hurting my business. But you know, I'm not a brand or an influencer. And I don't want to be. I'm just a dude in North Carolina helping people out with some stuff. You know, Elizabeth, and I've shared this with you before, I'm really not good at most things. I'm not. Good at a few things. Social media is not one of them. And I don't do a lot of it. Because I have other things I'm doing, like in conversations, or helping someone with a story. Not being online at all. And going for a swim.

20:50
playing pickleball. Playing pickleball or maybe connecting with a friend. Better use of my time. In fact, after hearing myself say all this, I'm gonna be on social media even less.

I love it. Thank you.

If you had a manifesto, I was going to say, I feel like your manifesto would be like, live your life, share your stories, don't waste it on social media.

Oh, I think the manifesto has to do with truth and honesty. I mean, I really do. I think you said it earlier. I agree, people aren't honest.

21:20
people tweak the honesty, which is just not honest, or they don't disclose anything at all. It's on both sides though, and then other people suck at listening. They have no interest in hearing people out. They have no interest in creating the space for people to talk or little interest, or sometimes they lack the skill, and it's like, nah, let's not do that here.

So give us your manifesto.

I mean, that's it. The reason I don't have a manifesto is it would only be like a paragraph. Do it first with someone like me, or it doesn't have to be me. I mean, truly, just hopefully somebody

21:49
Can we call it a mission statement?

Sure. I hope you see that you can be honest and that other people probably want to hear it. I hope you see that it's hard to do it on your own and I hope that you do it once and realize, man, I've got more of this shit in me. Maybe after the first one, you can figure out how to do it on your own. Maybe you don't need to do it more with me or other people. I don't know, but maybe you do.

Would it be fair to bring in values now?

22:16
I value honesty even the way I'm communicating right now. It doesn't have an off switch. And there's so much stuff that passes for honesty, but it's really not. I think it's so dangerous. This is what social media is littered with. There are a few things that are particularly prescient or happening a lot today, I feel like more that I don't necessarily stand against, but I think it's important. I think, and this has come up, right? Like this bow on top, Disney-ified, there's got to be some positive change.

22:45
Maybe we can call that the toxic positivity, is so normalized and it's so dangerous. And I'm actually leaning in the other direction only to oppose the forces that are out there that are even, you know, they're just like this weight of like, but I have to have a happy ending. It's like, no, you don't. You have to have an honest ending. When you have very few, if any places or people to talk to about it, it will feel a little uncomfortable until you do it. And you realize there are people that want to hear you. It gets a slightly less uncomfortable.

23:15
Sometimes, sometimes it doesn't. One thing that a lot of people don't appreciate is how them talking about something honestly helps us, those that listen, whether it's one person or a larger group or whomever, you have this power, legitimate, real thing that is allowing others to not only hear it, but understand it in a new way. You're in a way an ambassador. We can understand not just what you've gone through, but maybe...

23:43
what a lot of people go through. Well, and we can't do it if we're canceling out all of these certain ways to be able to share. One of the things you have to do in order to get to the other end where you're ready to talk about it or present or whatever, if you very quickly cancel someone's ideas or maybe the whole person, that's never gonna happen. And then of course, people know that that might happen, so they just completely shut down and they don't even start the process.

24:10
Right? And I think the idea of language policing overlaps with that a lot. You can say this, you can say that, and then that changes. Look, at the end of the day, you can say whatever you want. Yes, of course, there are consequences, but for this work, say what you've got to say. Remember, we can edit things out, but say what you've got to say. And yes, you'll get some help in saying it. And that is objective or as objective as it can be. That's part of my role. And it's also to allow a space.

24:40
for whomever I'm working with to talk without interruption, which is really hard to find, at least it is for me and a lot of people I've spoken to. Elizabeth, I want for a moment to talk about darkness because that is something that comes up a lot, that whatever someone's going through, it's dark. And as a result of that, I don't really wanna talk about it. In my experience, from my point of view, there's nothing that's dark on its own. Now, people will disagree with that, that's how I feel. But for me, darkness...

25:07
is going through something and feeling like there is nobody in the world who wants to hear it. That is dark. We're not allowed to talk about something because you, not the person who wants to talk about it, because you feel uncomfortable. Because you person who might hear this one day, you feel uncomfortable, so we have to change everything so you're comfortable.

The big, big truth is that we have to be willing to be uncomfortable. We have to be willing to be made uncomfortable. We have to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable. We have to be willing.

25:34
to suffer the fact that we're going to make people feel uncomfortable by telling the truth. It's just you've got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable and that's not easy to do.

In a short single sentence, tell us what lights you up? What makes this life that we all know can sometimes be unbearable worth living for you?

I have a hard time answering that question. Just so people know, Elizabeth came up with these questions. What makes my life worth living? Helping people. I don't want to sound too weird. I just think that's what we're on earth to do.

26:04
Anyone who goes to speakersean.com can know a fun fact about you because you, you put it in there. So can you please share an unfun fact about yourself?
Sure. I actually alluded to this earlier. I suck at a lot of things. So I think I'm not very good at most things that grownups are pretty good at. I think I'm really good at a few things. And so that's what I spend time doing. Yeah. I don't think I'm very good at most things. I'm glad I found a few things I'm pretty good at.

26:32
Anyway, thanks, Elizabeth, for putting those questions together and facilitating this conversation. And to anyone who is listening, I will ask you, because you're here and it seems like you might be interested, what is it? Give it some thought. What is it that you want to talk about? And how do you want to talk about it? And who do you want to share it with? I can only say without being too salesy or markety, I hope if you're holding on to something, you get it out.