Warner Brothers Studios, Burbank, CA
For over a century, storytellers have come to Hollywood looking for a "greenlight" – permission from a studio or network executive saying, "Yes, we give you permission to tell your story, and we will empower you with our resources and distribution channels."
But now, just like the stoplight in the Story Greenlight logo, the world has been turned upside down. Sharing your message with the world no longer requires enormous sound stages or an army of support staff, and you don't need permission from some 3rd-party executive operating on their priorities, not yours.
Today, if you have a phone with a camera and an internet connection, you now have the equipment, the platform, and the permission to say whatever you want to say.
Which leaves millions of people faced with the questions that have always been the trickiest to answer:
What do I say? Who do I talk to? How and where do I talk to them?
That's where Story Greenlight comes in.
Ever had your mind blown by things you thought were completely separate, but then they come together in amazing ways you never expected?
I always knew that I was into a whole bunch of different things, but I had no idea how they fit together, if they even did.
I started playing piano at the age of 4 first by ear, then by classical training. I discovered multi-track recording and MIDI sequencing in junior high, then video production in high school in a tiny, no-stoplight town in Northwest Iowa.
Moving to the big city of Omaha, Nebraska, I began college double-majoring in Bible studies and music composition. I packed semi trucks in a lumber yard during the week while taking shifts as a radio announcer on the weekends.
For my third year of college, I road-tripped out to Los Angeles, where I promptly ran out of money and dropped out of film school.
Film school didn't last long.
On the lot at NBC
Thankfully, a film school connection turned into my first internship. Over the next 20 years, that internship became a career editing television in Hollywood for some of the largest media outlets in the world, including ABC, NBC, Universal, Disney, Apple, and lots of others.
My commentary on the entertainment industry ended up in multiple textbooks, the Associated Press, USA Today, and Time Magazine. I even wrote a book – Edit Better: Hollywood-Tested Strategies for Powerful Video Editing.
Small group coaching for young TV editors
Along the way, I began learning how to teach others what I’d learned in Hollywood, which threw me into the world of course creation, sales, and online marketing.
It was the very beginning of internet marketing, and it was nuts. Marketing gurus taught all sorts of hyped-up, even outright deceptive marketing tactics and persuasion tricks, and I hated it.
I didn’t know why, other than it just made me want to take a shower.
For a long time, I got really turned off to business and marketing in general.
But slowly, over 4 decades of learning, teaching, and growth, I started to realize: all this music, media, storytelling, and even the business stuff was far more connected than I thought.
And even better, profitable sales and marketing doesn’t have to be hyped-up or slimy.
Turns out, all these things come together around one Thing Under the Thing:
Human connection.
Now that’s something I can get behind, and if you’re seeing this, I bet you can too.
Today my mission is to empower others with life-changing communication and guidance for themselves and the people they serve.
Let’s face it… there’s a whole world of forces trying to divide and tear people apart. People like us are here to rebuild what’s been torn apart, to bring people together to create good in the world.
I believe in a day when that battle will ultimately be won.
For now, the mission never ends. But it’s a fight worth fighting.
Family game night!
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