How Your Truth Can Set Us Free

ALTERNATE TITLES How Your Story Can Change The World How Your Story Can Set Us Free How Your Story Can Change You And The World

“The Million Person Project helped me be brave enough to touch the exposed nerve of the truths that drive me - and to translate them into public story. Their questions led me to a level of self honesty that I didn't know was waiting there under the surface. Being empowered to speak that honestly meant that I stepped closer to understanding my own version of the meaning of life, and once there, it became that much easier to act from that place. Through the process of our work, I better understood why I'm here and how my work, my actions, and my own personal meaning of life can become one unified force in the world.” – Caledonia Curry, the artist known as Swoon.

Book Proposal by Heather Box and Julian Mocine-McQueen [email protected] [email protected] www.millionpersonproject.org 415-971-3523 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Book Overview – Page 3 Chapter Summaries – Page 4 The Authors – Page 5 Author’s Platform - Page 6-9

2 BOOK OVERVIEW

Stories define how we understand our reality. If you aren’t sharing your story, you are passing up a vital opportunity to shape your own life and to inspire and transform the world around you.

This book offers you the tools and inspiration you need to uncover your most powerful stories and share them with the world.

If you are like most people, you are probably thinking one of two things right now. Perhaps you are thinking “I’m not really sure I have a story at all” or “my story doesn’t matter.” Or maybe you are thinking, “My story feels too personal or too hard to share.” Sound familiar?

Well, we are here to tell you that no matter where you fall on the spectrum, your story has power. It has the power to liberate you and to have a huge impact on people who hear it. This guide will help you explore your story and own it. It will help you understand and articulate the values that inspire everything you do. It will help you craft a unique narrative to share with the world, whether that’s on the TED stage, through writing or with family and friends. Sharing your story will bring you a huge sense of gratification and it will help you live a more authentic and connected life.

The truth is, only you can share your story, and the world is waiting to hear from you! It’s time. Dive in and let us help you understand just how much power your truth has. Power to transform you, deepen relationships and change the world! Follow the simple steps in this book and find out for yourself how “Your truth will set us free.”

3 CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Introduction: This section will explore the role of stories in the world: why they matter in the big picture, as well as how they can transform your relationships, work and world.

What makes a good story: This section will provide an overview of story and structure. We emphasize the importance of vulnerability, honesty and using stories as a vehicle to communicate your values.

Why your story matters: This section will look at how your story has the opportunity to impact the people around you in really positive and transformative ways. How sharing your story can lift burdens large and small. And how the act of sharing is intimate and will deepen your relationships with the people you are sharing with.

Who is your audience: This section will answer the questions: if you are sharing your story, why? Who are you speaking to, and why them? What impact do you want to have on your audience? How can you craft your story to reach the people you want to reach?

Finding your story: This section will help you do deep story excavation work and start to uncover the most impactful stories you carry. It includes exercises like life mapping, values assessment and message identification.

Crafting your narrative: This section will give you the framework to take the stories you have uncovered, the values and messages you have identified and craft a cohesive narrative that you can share with your audience. This is a big step!

Finding your voice: This section includes tips on how to develop your confidence by sharing your story. Start small. Write and share to inspire further breakthroughs on your narrative and to get comfortable sharing with vulnerability and authenticity.

Make your path: This section provides tips on how to identify and secure venues to share your story. How you can utilize your network, and create your own opportunities to take the stage.

You’re up!: This section will prepare you to share your story publicly, including tips and tricks for natural and compelling public speaking.

4 THE AUTHORS

Heather Box and Julian Mocine-McQueen help people find their voices and tell their stories in ways that are changing the world. They founded Million Person Project with a whirlwind global tour, where they taught everyone from actors and environmentalists in Vietnam to climate warriors in South Africa to rural farmers in .

Their clients tell their deepest, most honest stories to encourage young women in tech, help depressed pregnant women, raise money for black farmers in Alabama, advocate for equal access to high-quality medicine for people of color, fight to defend against rising sea levels in the Pacific, to name just a handful. They’ve trained 2,200 people from 69 countries to bring stories to light that are opening minds to new ideas and breaking open new ways of doing business and making public policy.

The core of their work is helping people identify their deepest, driving values and tell their personal stories to underline the importance of that value in our world. An example? knew it was critical to encourage young women to pursue technology jobs. That effort exploded in reach when she told her personal story on the TED stage and got 3.5 million views.

In many cases, telling their most personal stories has led these truth-tellers on surprising and incredible journeys. Caledonia Curry, the street artist known as Swoon, worked with Heather to tell her achingly personal story of growing up with drug-addicted parents. That story launched an intense period of world-changing creative work focused on social justice – with prisoners through the Philly Mural Project and with refugees at the Skissernas Museum in Sweden.

Their storytelling work creates a powerful bond between the storyteller and the audience, lighting up the places in the brain that create connection. They teach storytellers to open up in a way that enables them to reach out into the audience and grab the listeners and shake them up, so they are ready to stand up and take action.

Heather and Julian live in San Francisco. Heather worked in political and environmental organizing before starting the Million Person Project. She like to do insane endurance challenges and is known for holding a “Stranger Party” each year. Julian worked for Green for All, bringing environmental justice to underserved communities and taking the message on the road, touring as an activist with artists like Drake. Julian moonlights as a DJ in clubs in San Francisco and Oakland and is madly in love with his one-year-old nephew. They are part of a big, warm community of friends and family that love and support them.

5 AUTHOR’S PLATFORM

As entrepreneurs, we have built a multiple six-figure storytelling consulting business from the ground up. We have learned how to successfully launch, get visibility, build a global platform and garner notoriety. We’ve not only established strong relationships with some of the world’s most cutting-edge thought leaders, we have also had the privilege of coaching them.

Some of the work we have done includes:

- Working with Reshma Saujani of on her TED talk that went viral overnight, reaching 3.5 million viewers as of March 2018.

- Working with world-renowned street artist, Caledonia Curry, on her marquee talk that landed her a CNN op-ed - getting her message out to millions. We have worked together multiple times to help underrepresented voices tell their stories, including a prison project in Philadelphia with men serving life sentences and a project with refugees in Sweden who made the harrowing journey from Syria and Afghanistan to Sweden.

- Working with five-time Grammy Award-nominated singer, songwriter, and musician Sara Bareilles, to tell her depression story publicly and create a video that went viral with her message.

ENDORSEMENTS

"I am a big fan of the Million Person Project. They helped me dig deep into my own background in advance of my TED talk and identify the stories that made my speech a viral success." - Reshma Saujani

"The Million Person Project represents the type of innovative approach we need to address the needs of the world community. The project is strengthening and expanding the global network of change makers who are super-charging the movement for environmental sanity. – Van Jones

“What's so surprising about working with The Million Person Project is that they push past the primary and secondary layers of story, past the stories that we're familiar with telling each other, and into those tertiary layers of truth, where your story becomes an act of discovery for yourself and the listener. I believe our world has entered a high stakes moment, where we have absolutely no time for anything but the most unfiltered and radical truth – and the Million Person Project helped me be brave enough to touch the exposed nerve of the truths that drive me - and to translate them into public story. Their questions led me to a level of self honesty that I didn't know was waiting there under the surface. Being empowered to speak that honestly meant that I stepped closer to understanding my own version of the meaning of life, and once there, it became that much easier to act from that place. Through the process of our work, I better understood why I'm here and how my work, my actions, and my own personal meaning of life can

6 become one unified force in the world.” - Caledonia Curry

In addition to the roster of powerhouse clients and supporters, the Million Person Project has an authentic and engaged 3,500-person mailing list and 5,000-person social following. We’ve coached three best-selling authors, sixteen leaders on their TED talks, and worked with clients to get their stories featured in Ms. Magazine, the Tribune, CNN, BBC and more. Internationally, we have participated in 4 global summits and supported MPP’s storytellers in making speeches at the United Nations, Global Power Shift, and the global conference on sustainable development. We travel with the Million Person Project globally and run workshops and seminars with change makers from around the world. We have trained over 2,200 people from 69 different countries in the past six years and spent a month on the ground in Vietnam, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, Uganda, Sweden and across the Pacific Islands.

Last year, we launched the Stories Are Power interview series, interviewing change- makers on the power of storytelling, including Cary Fukunaga the writer and director of “True Detective” and “Sin Nombre”; Bill McKibben, the international best-selling author of The End of Nature; and Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. Some 1,800 people registered for the series, and from that we recruited 20 new private clients paying $5,000 each for our five-month program. After the interview series, we created a three-part video series that reached thousands and brought in viewers from across the world.

We will use the Million Person Project’s platform as one of the book’s key platforms. Since MPP’s inception, we have been building a brand and building our online platforms. We have garnered trust and goodwill among our base.

PARTNERS

We have invested in building deep partnerships and good will with the following organizations and individuals who are eager to promote our book and who will consider themselves partners in the book promotion. All told, with our high profile clients, friends, and partners we have a 10 million + reach.

High profile clients, friends, and endorsers of our work. People who will promote our book: Sara Bareilles, five-time Grammy award-nominated singer, songwriter and musician who most recently starred in the Broadway musical, Waitress. 3.33 million followers/ 449,400 Instagram followers/ 1,631,821 FB followers

Caledonia Curry, world-renowned female street artist. 112,000 Instagram followers/ 2,118 Twitter followers

Bill McKibben, Guggenheim Fellowship and Lannan Literary Award winner, environmentalist, author, journalist, founder of 350.org.

7 232,000 Twitter followers/ 11,022 followers

Cary Fukunaga, Emmy awarding winning American film director, writer, and cinematographer. Thought leader and influential in film community; does not use social media.

Van Jones, activist, CNN commentator, multiple NYT best selling author, NAACP Image Award winner. 759,000 Twitter followers/248,000 Instagram followers/ 890,674 Facebook followers

Anna Lappe, James Beard Foundation Award winner, author, sustainable food expert. (MPP Client) 29,500 followers on Twitter.

Rha Goddess, entrepreneurial soul coach, artist, founder of Move The Crowd. 2,297 Twitter followers/ 4,579 Facebook followers

JLove Calderon, social entrepreneur and conscious content creator. 1,301 Twitter followers/ 1,523 Instagram followers

Reshma Saujani, , politician, Girls Who Code founder. (MPP Client) 211,000 Twitter followers/ 46,1000 Instagram followers

Marshall Ganz, Harvard professor who teaches organizing and storytelling. Heather’s personal mentor. Does not use social media.

Maxine Hong-Kingston, award winning author and retired professor. Heather’s writing coach. 7,302 Facebook followers

Barb Schmidt, businesswoman, philanthropist, spiritual teacher. (MPP Client) 4,436 Twitter followers/ 34,200 Instagram followers/4.5 million Facebook followers

Shanda Sumpter, business coach and entrepreneur. 10,700 Twitter followers/2,163 Instagram followers/38,000 followers on Facebook

Fenton Lutunatabua, Pacific Communications coordinator, Pacific Climate warrior, storyteller. (MPP Client) 2,049 Twitter followers

Connections through our network: Alicia Garza, co-founder Black Lives Matter, author, activist. 42,400 Twitter followers/ 3,971 Instagram followers

Alissa Vitti, author, nutritionist, women’s hormones expert. 30,700 Twitter followers/ 4,130 Instagram followers

8 Jeff Chang, Award winning hip-hop historian, author, journalist, and music critic. 12,200 Twitter followers/ 2,187 Instagram followers/ 2,535 Facebook followers

Gabrielle Bernstein, author and coach. 205,000 Twitter followers/ 270,000 Instagram followers/ 331,300 Facebook followers

Brene Brown, scholar, author, public speaker. 388,000 Twitter followers/ 512,600 Instagram followers/ 1,032,583 Facebook followers

Sarah Blakley, founder of Spanx and businessperson. 26,000 Twitter followers

Organizations we have direct connections to that will support us: 350.org, Environmental Organization with global reach. 321,000 Twitter followers/ 556,000 Facebook followers

Move the Crowd, Entrepreneurial training company for socially conscious entrepreneurs. 2,500 Facebook followers

Heartcore Business, Business training company for female entrepreneurs. 152,000 Facebook followers / 10,700 Twitter followers

Green For All, National leadership development and policy organization for green leaders. 60,000 Twitter followers / 57,000 Facebook followers

9