Today we’d like to introduce you to Lynn Ferguson and Mark Tweddle.
Lynn and Mark, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
LYNN:
I grew up in Scotland and trained in theatre at the Royal Conservatoire. Three years and a BA later, I had done a bit of professional acting and was approached about trying to stand up comedy and offered what I thought was a mighty princely sum to do just three minutes of stand up on TV. After that, working as a stand up seemed like a natural progression, and I focussed on that while doing bits of acting here and there.
In 1995 I’d been asked to perform an hour of stand up at the Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe, but I wrote a one-woman play by mistake instead. The play did pretty well, won an award and toured the UK, Australia and Hong Kong, and was adapted for TV.
So then I was approached about writing a sitcom for the BBC. I wrote three series of ‘Millport” for BBC Radio 4, and a cluster of plays as well.
I’d been acting here and there on TV. And was performing 2 of my own shows back to back at the Edinburgh Fringe when I was approached about the Late Late Show.
I started working as a staff writer in October 2008 and stayed for 2 and a half years, whilst also writing for Pixar. After that, I decided I wanted to dabble in online work and mark and I formed ThisDayToday – a topical web series where we produced over 400 scripted historical videos in the space of a year. That was pretty crazy.
While working on other projects, I’d been dabbling in telling stories with The Moth. At the suggestion of one of my directors, I thought I’d try teaching storytelling. It was as if everything else I’d ever been working on fell into place. As an actor, I’d been trying to manipulate my voice and body to deliver a character’s truth. Stand up is all about being comfortable in the presence of an audience who can answer you back – as in being true to the moment. As a writer, the idea is to construct something that seems like it would be true.
First I worked with people in developing their stories into pieces they could tell to a live audience. Then I worked with writers who were blocked, or just wanting to shake up their voice. I work with groups and companies and a huge assortment of individuals who have very different needs varying from eulogies, to TedX talks, novel construction, or solo shows. Though it’s all under the one umbrella of story work, it’s easily the most diverse set of skills I’ve ever had to use. Every day is different, just as every story is.
I still write the odd play or two and pop back in to stand up and acting as and when, but story work at YouTellYours is a real passion of mine.
MARK:
It could also be said that I grew up in Scotland, though it could be said my childhood lasted until my mid-thirties too and so incorporated working for the UK Government in London. My background was in technology until I realized the main difficulty in every tech project was people – and people were a mystery to me. As I got more interested in how people work and use the technology, I got more interested in businesses and organizations which led me to complete an MBA at Imperial College, London. People are still a mystery to me, but I like to talk to them much more than computers.
When Lynn started to teach storytelling, I was when I got really interested. The skills I’d learned through our video project, ThisDayToday, meant that I would shoot her events and witness the personal development and joy.
I decided to do the class because I had never spoken to an audience without notes and I thought it was about time. What I didn’t realize was that I would learn so much about myself.
I always thought of myself as a big ‘blue sky’ thinker, not a details guy at all. After I told my first story to Lynn, she told me that I spoke in lists of details…I was not happy and I didn’t believe her at all!! However, the next story I told I had to stop halfway through as I had started to hear myself talking in a big list of details! As it turns out if you are a details person you are unlike to know it as you always feel that you don’t have enough details.
From this experience, I was hooked and got fully onboard in the business. I am convinced that everyone could benefit from this type of experience in their personal lives and especially in their work lives.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
LYNN:
Oh my God. The word “story.” that is the biggest issue. As soon as you say you do Story work, people immediately think it’s “once upon a time” or that there’s necessarily some kind of performance involved.
MARK:
From a business point of view, we started the wrong way around. We started with a product looking for a market when it’s always easier to start with a market that has a problem to be solved. It’s taken longer than I would have hoped to be able to quickly describe what we do.
Please tell us about YouTellYours.
LYNN
What I’m most proud of is that it helps people. It’s amazing to see. We all run stories in our head about who we are and how people see us. We have stories of shame and blame and guilt. Most people have a story running about “I’m not sure I belong.” when people get to hear the stories they’re running in their heads, it’s a huge release. Kind of like how it feels when you’ve been trying to have a conversation with the TV on full blast in the background, and you finally get to switch it off. People really change.
We definitely have a sort of YouTellYours community. Generally, people come back. That feels brilliant.
MARK:
The way that I describe our work is that we use narrative exercises to provide team members with greater self-awareness and social awareness of each other, which are the two key aspects of Emotional Intelligence. This improved Emotional Intelligence allows teams to work with far less stress and at much greater speed.
In our public story networking events, YouTellYours Connect, I watch people arrive with all their non-negotiable Facebook opinions and see them detox to a point where they are intently listening to each other describe their views and share what it’s like to stand in their shoes. And I love that.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
LYNN
I think I probably could have done without the year of ThisDayToday. It was pretty intense Mark reckons that we learned so many invaluable skills that it was worth it. I know that’s true, but I still sweat when I think of the schedule we put ourselves under.
MARK:
I’d have started to go out talking to people at networking events earlier. I didn’t feel that I had the confidence to talk about the business as Lynn is the story expert, but it was at those events that I discovered how much I knew already and everyone I met helped me understand the business more.
Contact Info:
- Address: 15157 Hamlin St
Van Nuys,
CA 91411 - Website: https://www.youtellyours.com/
- Phone: 818 850 2033
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/youtellyours/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/YouTellYours/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/YouTellYours
- Other: https://www.meetup.com/Fish-Bear-Meetup-Connecting-Creating-Through-Narrative/
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