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Hello friends, and welcome to The Story Forge Podcast where we believe Making Things Matters and where we work to get at the stories of people who make things that matter to the world. I’m Lyle Smith, your host. I’m a runner, a golfer, a father, a dog and cat lover, a reader and writer of stories both true and fictional, a lover of all things truthful, a fan of all things on film, I’m an admirer of the flim-flam as long as it’s and on the up and up, pursuer of what it is that makes things matter and… I wrote a book. It’s not the first book I’ve written. But it’s the first book I’ve put out there into the world for other people to read, absorb, hopefully enjoy and get some value out of. I didn’t set out to write this book. But the idea wouldn’t go away. It came from a thought I had a few years ago. Something that mattered to me. Something that I talked about and used as an example often in my work helping clients get their stories straight. I wrote it as an extended piece. Put it on my blog. Posted it for people to see. And the reaction was significant. People understood it. Agreed with it. Were grateful to have it pointed out in that way. And I was happy for that. And so I shared it. And pointed back to it from time to time. But the idea kept coming back to me. Wouldn’t leave me alone. It asked me to pay it more mind. To do more work on it. And so I did. And it got shorter. Sharper. More actionable. We were getting to know each other, this idea and I. Establishing a relationship. And it became something more meaningful. And this version got an even bigger reaction from people. They recognized it was about something that mattered to them. In a form that made sense to them. That they could share with other people to communicate something that mattered to them. And I took that as a sign. If there’s one thing that won’t leave me alone to the point that I have to keep paying attention, there must be other things like that, too. So I started thinking in this way. Writing in this way. And before I knew it, I had a collection of things that mattered. That I needed to share with other people. And that is where the book came from. Why Yellow Matters. My friend, Rocket, helped the title find me. Because nothing great comes into the world without some kind of collaboration. Why Yellow Matters. Is about communicating. Writing. Deciding. Understanding. Thinking things. Deciding things. Writing things. It is about brevity and balance. Cleverness and chaos and clarity. The hard things and the great things and opening yourself up to the zone. But most simply, it’s about taking the time to ask why. Thank you Jeff Simpson for putting words to that idea for me. It is about how important it is sometimes, often, to take the time to think about what you’re saying and doing and why that matters to you and other people. Other human beings in the world. I didn’t set out to write this book. I just had one idea one day that I thought was important and I started writing it down. One thought about how to do things. Better. How I do things when I do them well. And I thought it might be valuable to others. And it made me think up a few other ideas. Things I hadn’t noticed anyone else noticing. Because that’s how ideas work. Sometimes. How good ideas work. Most of the time. One after another after another. So I made a book. And I’m proud of the result. Because making things matters. And I hope you’ll want to read it. I’ll be talking about some of these ideas with future guests and the things they do and make and why they do it. And why it matters to them and their people. But this post is about Why Yellow Matters. And a little bit about how you can get it. If you want it. You can get your copy directly from the Nymblesmith website or just type in the title - whyyellowmatters.com Or if you’d prefer the ebook or need international shipping - or if you need more than a few copies - thank you for THAT very much - you can go through the Amazon or Barnes & Noble sites. Links to all of these are in the show notes and on the Nymblesmith site. Thank you for listening. Be careful out there.