Begin Reading Table of Contents About the Author Copyright Page Thank you for buying this St. Martin’s Press ebook. To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for our newsletters. Or visit us online at us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup For email updates on the author, click here. The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy. To Vanessa, For believing in us Acknowledgments I can’t thank the team at St. Martin’s Press enough for their support of this project. Executive Editor Tim Bartlett offered invaluable insights and comments to guide the creative process. Editorial assistant Claire Lampen made the entire process run smoothly, and for that I’m grateful. It’s been a joy to work with the entire team at St. Martin’s Press including Sally Richardson, George Witte, Laura Clark, and everyone from publicity and promotion to editing and design. Thank you for bringing The Storyteller’s Secret to life. Roger Williams has always been more than a literary agent. I’m thankful for his mentorship, guidance, and unwavering enthusiasm. My speaking agents Tom Neilssen and Les Tuerk, along with the entire team at BrightSight Group, play an invaluable role in helping me share this content with groups around the world. They deserve special thanks and recognition. Mark Fortier and Norbert Beatty at Fortier PR, our outstanding publicists who I turn to for guidance. Thank you for your valuable partnership. Carolyn Kilmer, community manager and design expert at Gallo Communications Group, is an important part of our team and she does a magnificent job of extending our content far and wide. My wife, Vanessa Gallo, believes in the story we have to share and works tirelessly to manage Gallo Communications. She also takes a leadership role in our daughters’ school by volunteering as president of the Parent Teacher Group. It’s inspiring to watch her apply our storytelling content to the field of education. Vanessa is my guiding light. As always, special thanks to my family for their support: Josephine, Lela, Tino, Donna, Francesco, Nick, Ken, Patty, and my mother, Giuseppina. My father, Francesco, is no longer with us, but his story of struggle and triumph has always shaped my view of the world. My dad’s story gave me permission to dream. Preface Your Story Is My Passion I was lying flat on my back. I had slipped on a sheet of ice outside of my 500-square-foot apartment in western Wisconsin. The thermometer hit zero that morning—20 degrees colder if you counted the windchill. I had torn my only suit, an expensive Italian outfit I had proudly purchased in San Francisco a few days earlier before getting in my car and driving 2,000 miles to take my first television job as a morning news anchor. As I was lying on the sidewalk in the early morning freeze, looking up at a decaying apartment complex in the worst part of town, a number of questions raced through my mind: Had I made the right decision to give up law school— the “safe” choice—to pursue my passion—a career in broadcast journalism? Would I be stuck making $15,000 a year for the rest of my career? Would my father, who had landed on these shores as an Italian immigrant with $20 in his pocket after World War II, have been proud of my decision, or would the former prisoner of war have felt that his son was squandering an opportunity to make it in America? I didn’t have an answer to all of my questions at the moment, but I reached two conclusions. First, it’s best to buy two-for-one suits, preferably at a discount, if you can barely afford to pay your $400 monthly rent. Second, that following my passion would be really, really tough, even harder than the ice I had just cracked with my head. And with that I got up, picked up my papers, now stuck