See a photo of Park, his bio, Part 1 of this Q&A, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

Q&A with Park Howell, Questions 14 and 15:

Q: What’s your favorite story about a transformation that came about through a story or storytelling act?

A: For the past 15 years, our agency has worked with Forever Living Products, the world’s largest grower, manufacturer and distributor of aloe-vera-based health and beauty products. Every year we creative direct, write and produce the company’s international Super Rally, when more than 3,000 of their top distributors from 125+ countries gather in what is the United Nations of network marketing.

As you might imagine, we try to reinvent the product launch portion of their event every year to present something unique, surprising, and motivating to their top sales people. This past year we essentially wrote a two-hour play that depicted the growth of a distributor as we launched several projects throughout the three acts of the production. In addition to launching new product, the client also wanted to provide snippets of business training and motivation, while also recognizing some of their top-performing distributors. To add to the challenge, we needed to keep our audience riveted to the action while having the dialogue simultaneously translated and broadcast to the crowd in 10 languages. Verbal jokes never work given the timing delay of the translators. So our story needed to be told with great attention to the visuals and physical action on stage, while also writing a compelling script.

Our heroine was a mother of three stuck in a dead-end job, who decided to venture out into network marketing. Her antagonists included a condescending boss, nay-saying husband, skeptical mother, slimy MLM huckster with a shady product, self-doubt, and a host of obstacles that she, like every real-life distributor, must overcome to be successful. We applied the 15 beats to great storytelling and paid close attention to the setting and timing of each act. We took her to artificial highs found in her early success, only to lead her into a great low when her distributorship began to deteriorate for her false sense of achievement.

We tested her morals and work ethic as she rebuilt her company, all the while inserting training and motivational side stories into the play to amplify her success and pains, while demonstrating to the crowd ways to avoid these pitfalls and grow a successful business.

The production ended with our protagonist overcoming all odds and reaching the highest sales level and being pinned on stage by FLP’s CEO, just as she would at the Super Rally. For the first time in 15 years, distributors who had traveled for days to get to the Denver convention, stayed riveted in their seats. The outcome of the story was obvious. Everyone knew what was going to happen. And when we delivered her to the exalted “Diamond” level of the FLP marketing plan, and she was recognized on stage, the crowd went wild. We heard time and again that it was the best product launch we had ever produced. I give all of the credit to the transformative power of story, coupled with a great understanding of the crowd’s worldview of the subject matter, and our intense focus on delivering a story with universal themes that would resonate internationally.

Q: If you could share just one piece of advice or wisdom about story/storytelling/narrative with readers, what would it be?

A: Every great story begins with you, the writer. If you don’t take risks, go “All in,” meet new people, explore your uncomfortable zones often, and have the courage to create lots of inciting incidents in your life that propel you into action, then you don’t have what it takes to tell a great story. Live adventurously and colorfully, and your words will leap off the page and make a difference on your readers’ lives. Make your life an epic.