I was speaking to an Uber driver on the way to my hotel. He asked what I was doing in Las Vegas, so I told him that I was speaking at a conference.
“Is that your job?” he asked. “Speaking at conferences? How does that happen?”
Elysha and I wonder this ourselves all the time.
I told the man that I became an elementary school teacher in 1999, achieving a lifelong goal that once seemed impossible.
Around that same time, my friend and I launched a wedding DJ business that we would own and operate for more than 25 years.
Then, while teaching and working as a wedding DJ, I started pursuing a publishing career. Ten years later, I published my first novel. I’ve published ten books since then.
I thought that would be it for me. Teaching and writing. Wedding DJ and also a minister on the side, officiating weddings and conducting baby naming ceremonies. Eventually serving as a substitute and guest minister at churches in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Then, while doing all that, I went to New York City in July of 2011 to tell a story at The Moth and discovered that I was a damn good storyteller. The combination of a lifetime of obsessing over writing, reading, and movies, plus a decade of teaching and speaking to wedding guests, alongside an undeserved degree of confidence, hubris, and a genuine lack of concern about what others think of me, had equipped me well as a storyteller.
I won my first Moth StorySLAM and instantly fell in love with the art. So I went back again and again to perform and compete, first to New York City, then to Boston, and soon around the world, telling stories on stages big and small. Soon after, Elysha and I launched Speak Up, producing storytelling shows across Connecticut and, later, a podcast of the same name.
But I thought I would be just that — a man who tells stories on stages that make people laugh and cry.
Then a business owner named Boris heard me tell some stories and asked me to help him, and soon, I was working for his company and many others. People started coming from as far away as China to have me teach them to tell better stories. I wrote a book on storytelling that continues to sell more copies than the year before.
Then, almost without trying, I found myself on Microsoft’s campus. Consulting with the FBI at Quantico. Working with companies like Google, Amazon, Etsy, Ticketmaster, Facebook, Johnson & Johnson, and so many more. I found myself teaching on the campuses of Yale, Harvard, MIT, and many more.
I was still teaching, of course. Writing and publishing novels and nonfiction. Operating my DJ company. Officiating weddings, too. I just kept piling on the opportunities as they presented themselves.
How did all this happen? I have no idea.
I tell the Uber driver all of this, and he is amazed. “That’s incredible!” he says. “What a man!”
So I ask him about his story.
He came to the United States in June of 2020 during the pandemic. He has been an accountant for a large corporation in Mexico City, but when the pandemic hit, he was fired and needed work, so he emigrated to Bakersfield, California, on a work visa to pick fruit in California’s orchards.
He had never done any farming in his life, but he was desperate for work and learned fast. He earned good wages in the two years he spent working in orchards and then fields, and saved almost all of it for his return home.
While in California, he made some friends who asked him to join them in Las Vegas for a week of fun before his planned return to Mexico City, so he agreed. He spoke no English at the time and had planned to return home at the end of the month, so he decided a short vacation was a good idea.
He had earned it.
While in Vegas, he met an Uber driver at a bar who explained how the business works. He was intrigued. The Uber driver was going on a three-week vacation to Italy and asked if my new friend would like to take over his car and his business in his absence, splitting the profits 50/50.
He agreed. “A little extra money before returning to Mexico,” he thought. “Maybe pay for this Vegas vacation and a little bit more.”
A week later, while driving for Uber, he met his future wife when she climbed into his back seat for a ride home. She was an American who didn’t speak a word of Spanish, and his English was still exceptionally limited, but somehow, despite the language barrier, they fell in love.
So he remained in Vegas, taking his profits from two years of work in Bakersfield to purchase a high-end Tesla so he could begin driving for Uber.
That was four years ago.
Today, he’s married with one child and living in Las Vegas. He still drives for Uber. His English is excellent. He has a couple of side hustles that he hopes will someday make his fortune, including a bilingual tour guide service that hires Spanish speakers to lead guided tours of Las Vegas for Spanish-speaking tourists.
He employs half a dozen people and wants to move into German and French next. Maybe Arabic.
“Lots of Arabs come to Vegas,” he said.
He’s also working with a friend on building an app. He didn’t want to disclose the app’s purpose (“secret stuff”), but he and his friend are learning to code so they can build it themselves.
When he was finished with his story, I said:
“Your story is as crazy as mine! If the pandemic doesn’t happen, you’re still an accountant in Mexico City instead of living in Las Vegas — a husband, a father, and an English speaker, building businesses while driving a $75,000 car you bought with cash earned picking fruit in Bakersfield. Your story is just as incredible as mine!”
He laughed. “I guess you’re right. I guess I didn’t really see my story.”
People do this all the time.
They are in the midst of a great adventure, but they fail to see the adventure. They move forward, day after day, solving problems, building a future, and, hopefully, enjoying life, but never taking stock of how they came to be where they are and what an incredible, unpredictable, and amazing journey they are on.
I often say that storytellers are self-centered in a positive way, meaning we spend time thinking about ourselves. Considering our place in this world. Examining how we think and feel. Seeking moments of monumental decision, bad luck, and great fortune. Recognizing the enormous power of chance encounters, serendipity, coincidence, and stepping outside our comfort zone.
Then, after we find these stories, we tell them, often only to ourselves and sometimes to the people we love.
If you’re like me, you might tell them on stages, too, to hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of people at a time.
But regardless of our audience, we seek to know and tell our story. We afford ourselves time to think about ourselves.
Storytellers understand our past better than most. We see the seemingly small moments that so many disregard and ignore as immense, important, and often life-changing.
I believe we are happier because of it.
I know I am. I’m the happiest person I know, and I think it’s because I’m a storyteller. I know my story. I see the immensity, complexity, and wondrous nature of my life.
It hasn’t always been easy. It’s still not easy. I suffer with heartache every day of my life. I still wonder why some things have not changed and why other things have. I still fight for things I cannot reach and battle with forces I cannot control.
But it’s been an interesting, fascinating, unpredictable, challenging, unbelievable, and astounding life, not because I am different than most, but because I see my life with clear eyes, an open heart, and a deeply, relentlessly curious mind.
I spend time thinking about me.
I suggest you do the same.
