Ted McGrath on the Reimagination of Story and Mission in Business

Ted McGrath make a living sharing his story – the good, bad, and ugly – as a performer on stage. He also coaches speakers and entrepreneurs on the use and application of stories in business.

But what makes him so unique in this?

He takes the approach in marketing that we aren’t all alike, and while we can relate to each other, we are all very different – and extraordinary – people. And he believes it’s this message we should share in our businesses.

Ted walks the walk and discusses his own difficult, and sometimes embarrassing, past, from his feelings of not being good enough to almost dying after he discovered in his twenties that he was earning six figures.

Download the transcript here.

• At :59 – Ted talks about what he actually does, which is more of a movement, and how he doesn’t keep any parts of his life separated from that.
• At 7:03 – Ted loves being center stage, but his feelings of inadequacy almost killed him. Literally. The day he discovered he was making six figures as a 20 year old, he almost overdosed and died on the kitchen floor.
• At 10:50 – When Ted started his one man show part of it was having to talk with his family about all the deep and dark secrets he had held in for so long before he laid it out on stage.
• At 20:00 – Ted talks about the origin of the one man show, and how putting the most difficult parts of his life on display helps his audience realize and share their own stories.
• At 24:00 – Ted drills down to the core of his message: while we may have things in common, we’re all extremely different. And that should be carried over to marketing.