The Storytelling Lab covers everything you need to know about personal and professional stories to leverage their power to deepen your connections, increase your sales + donations, and serve your audiences better with real-life examples and experts.
Discover shows related to The Storytelling Lab, based on actual content similarities. Explore podcasts with similar topics, themes, and formats, backed by real data.
The Secret to Finishing The Story You Start with Kim Krizan
Season 19 · Episode 241
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 • Duration 56:31
"You've got to manage both sides. You're the captain of the ship. You let the playful side talk and then you get it organized and manage it. People are dominant on one side or the other, and either side can be very bad if you go to the extreme." — Kim Krizan
Recap
Kim Krizan co-wrote Before Sunrise, one of the most beloved films of the nineties, without ever having read a script before.
She'd been cast by Richard Linklater in Slacker, he read her master's thesis, and said "let's write something." That's how a boy-meets-girl story set over a single evening in Vienna became an Academy Award-nominated trilogy and a touchstone for anyone who believes a conversation can be the whole movie.
In this episode, Kim and Rain dig into the craft and philosophy behind that kind of storytelling—dialogue-driven, emotionally subtle, built on psychology rather than plot. They talk about how to balance the two sides of every storyteller's brain, how to collaborate without losing yourself, what regional and cultural differences reveal about how people approach story, and why the real payoff of writing has nothing to do with awards or attention.
Kim also reflects on the Before Sunrise trilogy's unexpected life and what it felt like to be the writer in a medium that doesn't always remember there is one.
This one is personal for Rain, as hee's directing his own dialogue-driven feature this fall, and it shows. One of the most intimate and honest conversations in the show's run.
Key Takeaways
In this episode, you will learn to:
Balance the wild creative side and the disciplined structured side of your brain rather than surrendering to one extreme
Silence the inner critic early in your process so your subconscious can do the work it was built to do
Write dialogue-heavy stories that hold an audience by building intimacy and escalating psychological stakes over time
Approach creative collaboration as a negotiation — knowing which hills are worth dying on and which ones to release
Write because your soul needs it, not because you want recognition — and understand why that distinction changes everything about the work
The Three Question Ad Audit Every Brand Needs to Run Right Now
Season 16 · Episode 240
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 • Duration 17:58
"Advertising is the loudest, most publicly visible, and highest-stakes storytelling that your brand will do. And one misaligned ad can destroy and erode years of trust that you have built." — Rain Bennett
ORDER The Chief Storytelling Officer here! https://amzn.to/4A2xxyQ
Description
Most brands treat advertising like a numbers game.
But advertising is still storytelling. In fact, it's the loudest, most publicly visible, and highest-stakes storytelling your brand will ever do. And if that ad is misaligned with your brand narrative, one spot can erase years of trust in a matter of days.
In this solo episode, Rain breaks down the advertising chapter of The Chief Storytelling Officer and the role advertising plays in the Narrative Operating System—the tip of the spear, the ask, the first point of contact between your brand and the people you're trying to reach.
Using the now-infamous 2019 Peloton holiday ad as a cautionary tale and Aviation Gin's rapid-fire response as a masterclass in brand alignment, Rain unpacks exactly what separates an ad that builds community from one that blows it up. He closes with a three-question ad audit you can run on your own campaigns today.
Key Takeaways
In this episode, you will learn to:
Understand where advertising fits in the Narrative Operating System as the tip of the spear
Diagnose why the Peloton ad failed — not just as storytelling but as brand alignment
Recognize why Aviation Gin's response worked and what made it possible at that speed
Audit any ad in three questions: does it reflect your values, is it recognizable without the logo, and does it invite transformation?
Build advertising that invites people into your story world rather than pushing them toward a transaction
Links & Resources
How the Special Olympics Keeps Its Story Consistent Across 177 Countries with Sydnye White
Season 16 · Episode 239
Friday, August 28, 2026 • Duration 57:25
"Storytelling is local. But we are a global brand, so we do need consistency — and enough flexibility that everything can be used at a local level, because what resonates in China is not the same thing that resonates in Kenya." — Sydnye White
ORDER THE CHIEF STORYTELLING OFFICER HERE:
https://amzn.to/4gUVhxc
How do you keep a brand narrative consistent and cohesive across 177 countries, 10,000 events a year, and millions of athletes, volunteers, coaches, and families?
That is the task in front of Sydnye White, VP of Content and Storytelling at Special Olympics global headquarters. And in this episode, she breaks down exactly how she approaches it.
Sydnye came to Special Olympics from a broadcast background at Discovery, National Geographic, and NBC News, not because she was chasing a mission but because she needed a job. What she found on her first day—being welcomed by colleagues with intellectual disabilities who didn't care about her resume, only that she showed up authentically—changed everything. Eight years later, she's still there, still closing the gap between what people think Special Olympics is and what it actually does.
We dig into the logistics of global brand storytelling, why the most powerful content centers the athlete's own voice, how to navigate guardrails when your subjects are vulnerable, and what most brands get wrong when they chase authenticity without actually including the people they're telling stories about. This is brand storytelling as a system—operating at the largest possible scale, with the highest possible stakes—and Sydnye makes it feel both accessible and urgent.
In this episode, you will learn to:
Close the gap between what your audience thinks you are and what you actually do through intentional, consistent narrative
Center the voices of the people your story is actually about rather than just telling stories at them
Links & Resources
Why the Stories We Dismiss Are Often the Ones We Need Most with Leslie Zemeckis and Sara Divello
Season 16 · Episode 238
Friday, August 14, 2026 • Duration 45:20
"You do the story that you want to do because you believe in it and it will find an audience. You have to be passionate about something and not try and hop off what's already out there. You have to absolutely 1000% have a vision." — Leslie Zemeckis
Not all stories are treated equally — and Leslie Zemeckis and Sara DiVello are on a mission to change that. In this episode, the co-hosts of the Plot Point podcast, founders of the Santa Barbara Literary Festival and Nantucket Book Festival respectively, and bestselling authors in their own right join Rain to break down why the stories we tend to dismiss — romance, thriller, true crime, comedy — are often doing the most important work of all.
We talk about how comedy functions as a doorway to empathy, why chasing trends produces what Leslie calls Skittles books, and how to carry the story of a real person with the care and tenderness you would want someone to take with yours. Sara's research into the Great Migration and pioneering female journalists, and Leslie's documentary work shining a light on forgotten women in history, form the backdrop of a conversation about what it really means to give overlooked stories and overlooked storytellers their due.
If you are writing your first book, finishing your tenth, or simply trying to figure out what story deserves your attention next, this episode is your reminder: write the thing that lights you up, don't wait for permission, and know that every finish line is just another starting line.
In this episode, you will learn to:
1. Reject the arbitrary hierarchy that ranks some story genres as serious and others as disposable
2. Write the story that sustains you through the full marathon — not the one you think will sell
3. Research deeply and carry your subject's story with the care you would want for your own
4. Build a creative community instead of working in isolation — it will change your career
Links & Resources
The Complete Creator Framework Every Storyteller Needs with Anubhav Srivastava
Season 15 · Episode 237
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 • Duration 54:06
"The best of the writers know structures are important. And then they forget that they've been intuitively following a structure and tell the world you don't need structure. The rest of the people think they don't need structure and realize by the hundredth page they don't know what the story is going to be." —Anubhav Srivastava
What if there was one place where you could brainstorm your story, build your characters, map your world, storyboard your structure, and connect with expert storytellers who could help you take it further?
That's exactly what Anubhav Srivastava set out to build. Four years, 17 chapters, and over 2,000 hours into writing his own fantasy fiction novel, Anubhav built VocaTales: a visual story crafting platform designed for planners, organizers, and creative thinkers who need more than a blank page.
In this episode, Anubhav breaks down how VocaTales works, how it compares to tools like Scrivener and Miro, and why he built it exclusively for storytellers rather than corporate use cases. He also introduces UpTales, the companion platform where writers can connect with professional editors, writing coaches, and storytelling experts for short calls, long-term coaching, or workshopping their work. Together, VocaTales and UpTales form what Anubhav calls the Creator OS: a full flywheel from the first spark of an idea all the way to publication and beyond.
We also dig into what Anubhav has learned from interviewing and collaborating with great storytellers, why structure is the most underrated tool any writer has, and why he believes AI should power your left brain tasks so your right brain can stay free to do what only humans can do. This one is equal parts product demo, storytelling masterclass, and a deeply personal conversation about dharma, self-discovery, and why the best products, like the best stories, are built for the creator first.
In this episode, you will learn to:
Use structure and story frameworks as a foundation for creativity rather than a constraint on it
Links & Resources
How to Build Narrative Architecture Before AI Builds It for You with Michael Margolis
Season 15 · Episode 236
Thursday, June 18, 2026 • Duration 01:15:43
"A narrative lives or dies on the conviction of the most senior authorized leaders of the organizational system. The story is the strategy. A company without a story is usually a company without a strategy." — Michael Margolis | Storied, Inc.
What if your organization's stories were the new code base?
In this episode, Rain sits down with Michael Margolis, founder of Storied, Inc., and one of the most respected voices in organizational storytelling and narrative strategy, for a conversation that functions as a masterclass in how language, storytelling, and brand messaging actually drive business outcomes in the age of generative AI.
Michael has spent over two decades pioneering narrative as a management discipline, working inside Facebook and Meta across 14 product divisions, advising companies like Google, Shopify, Uber, and NASA, and now serving as an operating partner for narrative at Veridical Ventures.
This conversation goes deep into the distinction between story and narrative, two words most marketing strategy and brand storytelling content treats as interchangeable but which Michael argues are fundamentally different disciplines. A story is a closed loop with a beginning, middle, and end. A narrative is an open loop, an abstraction, an architecture that every individual story hangs from like an ornament on a Christmas tree. Michael breaks down the four waves of organizational storytelling, from early knowledge management to the social media era's democratization of brand narrative, to his seven years embedded inside Meta building the strategic narrative behind Facebook Groups, to today's narrative economy where large language models are, by definition, narrative machines.
Whether you're a founder building brand purpose from scratch, a CMO trying to align your messaging house, or simply someone trying to understand why storytelling has quietly become the literal infrastructure of how modern organizations operate, this episode will change how you think about every word your company puts into the world.
Links & Resources
The Content Cascade Strategy Every Brand Needs Right Now
Season 15 · Episode 235
Friday, June 12, 2026 • Duration 20:45
Pre-Order The Chief Storytelling Officer HERE: https://amzn.to/4eihvql
"Commercials interrupt people. Shows invite them into the story world. That is the difference between traditional marketing and storytelling." — Rain Bennett
Your marketing campaign strategy is perfectly executed... and it still flops.
The visuals are crisp, the copy is tight, and nobody cares. In this solo episode, Rain breaks down the real reason most marketing fails: it isn't a production problem, it's a storytelling problem.
When your marketing isn't rooted in a clear brand purpose, it becomes what Rain calls "story yelling," which is loud, scattered, and ultimately forgettable. This is the fifth installment of the Narrative Operating System series, and it's where brand building and marketing strategy finally collide.
Rain walks through how the Chief Storytelling Officer fits into your marketing function. Not to replace your CMO, but to ensure every campaign, every message, and every piece of content traces back to the brand narrative your company intentionally chose.
The CSO's job isn't to ask "does this say what we want to say?" It's to ask "does this make people feel what we want them to feel?" That distinction is the entire difference between brand storytelling and traditional advertising.
Using Yeti, Cali BBQ, and the Neuroendocrine Cancer Foundation as case studies, Rain shows how the most effective marketing strategies aren't campaigns at all—they're story worlds.
He introduces the Content Cascade model as a practical framework for building tent pole projects, supporting stories, and audience amplifiers from a single unified brand messaging strategy.
And before you go, he breaks down which metrics actually reflect meaningful connection (watch time, saves, comments, shares) and which vanity metrics to stop reporting on entirely. If your brand purpose is clear but your marketing still feels scattered, this episode is your blueprint.
LINKS AND RESOURCES
Steven Pressfield Was 52 (!) Before His First Novel Sold
Season 15 · Episode 234
Thursday, June 4, 2026 • Duration 40:36
"A good day is when the flow starts to happen and you kind of lose yourself in it. But you cannot count on those days. So I'm a real believer in grinding — just get in there and take what the defense will give you." — Steven Pressfield
ORDER THE ARCADIAN HERE: https://amzn.to/4nYHV5e
Steven Pressfield is your favorite writer's favorite writer.
But years before his best-selling hits like Gates of Fire and The War of Art, Steven Pressfield didn't sell his first novel until he was 52. After over two decades of trying!
In Part 2 of our conversation, he and Rain dig into what kept him going, and what keeps him going still.
From his daily gym ritual to his philosophy on the Muse, from building a catalog instead of betting everything on one book to his relationship with mentor Robert McKee, this episode is a masterclass in the long game of creative work.
If you're in the weeds, struggling to finish, or wondering whether it's too late, this is the conversation you need to hear.
In this episode, you will learn to:
Build a daily creative habit that beats Resistance even when inspiration doesn't show up
Think in catalogs, not single projects, to take pressure off any one piece of work
Use physical movement and morning routines as momentum for the creative work that follows
Trust the Muse over the market — your least commercial idea may be your most resonant one
Embrace the long game and stop measuring yourself against overnight success stories
Special Thanks to our Presenting Sponsor for this episode, Vocatales →
Links & Resources
Why Most Writers Build Characters Completely Wrong with Steven Pressfield
Season 15 · Episode 233
Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 35:12
"Sometimes you write a character that asserts himself—something you didn't plan. It's like he wanted to come back, and he brought his own story with him. It was kind of my job as a writer to ask myself what that story was." — Steven Pressfield
ORDER THE ARCADIAN HERE: https://amzn.to/4nYHV5e
Steven Pressfield is your favorite writer's favorite writer.
And in this episode, Rain sits down with him in person in Los Angeles to talk about the craft behind The Arcadian, the new novel in his Telamon series.
What starts as a conversation about a centuries-spanning warrior with a karmic curse quickly becomes a writing advice masterclass in how great fiction actually gets made: through instinct, detail, observation, and a willingness to follow a character wherever he leads.
Steven breaks down how he discovered Telamon's immortality only after writing him across multiple books, why physical and historical details are what make the impossible believable, and how a 2500-year-old quote from an ancient Greek philosopher became the seed of an entire novel.
If you write anything—novels, screenplays, brand stories, or scripts—this conversation will change how you think about finding and following a story.
In this episode, you will learn to:
- Trust instinct over planning in your writing and follow your characters even when you don't understand where they're going
- Use specific physical details to earn the reader's trust before asking them to believe the extraordinary
- Find story seeds in quotes, lyrics, and observations, and let them percolate until the full shape emerges
- Get the story first and research second to avoid using research as a form of Resistance
- Move the camera inside your prose, shifting perspective the way a cinematographer would, to write vivid, immersive scenes
Links & Resources
Why Storytellers Are More Valuable in the Age of AI with Joe Lazer
Season 15 · Episode 232
Thursday, May 14, 2026 • Duration 53:55
"AI was going to get better at technical skills like coding and data analysis much faster than storytelling, because it's much easier to objectively define what is correct code. With storytelling, it's much more ephemeral. AI researchers have called it absurd, trying to quantify what good storytelling is." — Joe Lazer
When ChatGPT launched, the headlines were brutal. Storytellers were cooked, creative work was done, they all said.
Joe Lazer did what any good journalist would do: he started asking questions. What he found, after two years of salons, research, and interviews with AI developers and future-of-work researchers, was the exact opposite.
In this episode, Joe breaks down why AI will make storytelling the most important skill in the new economy.
Joe is the co-founder of Contently, author of the new book Super Skill, and one of the sharpest thinkers on the intersection of AI and human-centered storytelling.
We get into the neuroscience of why storytelling makes us better at leadership, persuasion, and collaboration; why heavy AI reliance causes a measurable 17% drop in skill mastery; and how to avoid the "vortex of mid" that's pulling most brands toward mediocrity. We also get real about how both of us actually use AI day-to-day, and where we draw the line.
In this episode, you will learn to:
Understand why AI raises the value of storytelling rather than replacing it
Recognize how heavy AI reliance causes measurable skill atrophy
Avoid the vortex of mid and stay out of generic AI-flavored content
Apply the Unlock, Unleash, and Upgrade framework from Super Skill
Build audience trust through transparency about your AI use
Links & Resources
Follow Joe Lazer:
The Storytelling Lab, a podcast by Rain Bennett - Stats, Episodes and Rankings - My Podcast Data
Episodes Referenced:
EP 235 → Marketing and the Narrative Operating System
EP 225 → Brand and the Narrative Operating System
EP 230 → Product and the Narrative Operating System
Case Study → Peloton 2019 Holiday Ad
Case Study → Aviation Gin "Peloton Wife" Response Ad
Ad Campaign Referenced → Nike: Just Do It
Ad Campaign Referenced → Patagonia: Don't Buy This Jacket
Ad Campaign Referenced → Apple: 1984
Agency Referenced → Wieden and Kennedy (Nike's long-standing creative agency)
