Confidence 2.0: How Storytelling Training Unlocked A New Opportunity

Anthony Do never solicits for work. He doesn’t have a flashy website or incredible social media presence. Yet he’s globe-trotting to work with a range of clients from luxury brands Aston Martin, Hermes, and Six Senses to famous athletes, actors and philanthropists. One month, he’s living in Iceland with the world’s strongest man and Game of Thrones actor Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. Then he’s traveling Indian Reservations in North America making films to share the mission of the nonprofit Rez Famous. 

Anthony is a filmmaker, a photographer, and a YouTuber. His focus? Making connections through stories. Anthony is a Certified Story Facilitator (CSF) Level 1. We recently re-connected with him to hear more about his exciting life of storytelling around the world and how storytelling training is helping him bring his facilitation skills to the next level. 

Leadership Story Lab: Let’s start with understanding your choice of storytelling platform. Why YouTube? 

Anthony: YouTube is chaos. It’s whatever you want it to be. But the other side of that is possibility. I think that’s why I love it. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. It’s the greatest search engine for this and the next generation. And it’s also one of the most intimate. 

You can find trash there, but you can also find life changing voices in people that you resonate with. It’s not polished. You can show the real and raw and be as vulnerable as you want. I think that can be very scary to people. But I also think that there’s a lot of beauty in that.

Leadership Story Lab: So how do you use YouTube and how do your clients use it? 

I use YouTube personally to do creative expression as an artist. When I create something and I post it, it’s about what’s on Anthony’s head and heart today.

In this film, Anthony reminds himself and his viewers  “that change usually wears a scary mask, but behind it is usually something pretty beautiful.”

But I also use the platform for business to help other people build their brands. 

For example, Anthony worked with Thor, the world’s strongest man to help build his YouTube page and following.

YouTube is a place where traffic is already there. People are excited to find new stuff and watch and consume. YouTube is one of those platforms where anything can happen. That’s why I love it.

It’s so hard to find something that’s real, especially in 2025 with all the AI. You don’t know what’s AI generated and what’s human anymore. So when you find someone on YouTube and they just turned on camera and they’re talking in their garden about the book that they just wrote or they’re on their journey to become a published writer, you connect with it, because it’s real, not polished. 

Since the increased use and reliance on AI, Leadership Story Lab has found that the ability to facilitate storytelling is increasingly critical. In the age of AI, showing up as fully human, connected to your stories, distinguishes you from a crowded playing field. As a filmmaker, Anthony helps people tell their authentic stories on YouTube. 

I’ve traveled with public figures as their storyteller. I’ve lived with famous athletes. There’s a boxer, Teofimo Lopez, in New York and I lived with him and his family. I get integrated in people’s life as their storyteller.

Leadership Story Lab: How has CSF’s storytelling training impacted how you create a YouTube story?

Anthony: I have a deep understanding of the hero’s journey and the intricacies of that framework by Joseph Campbell. But for most people storytelling is overwhelming. 

What Esther’s genius is — is that she simplified it to the IRS framework. It is so simple. It simplifies down a whole universe of ideas and knowledge down to this acronym.

IRS is a signature storytelling framework used in during this storytelling training to help shape brief, brilliant stories. The acronym stands for: I – intriguing beginning. R – riveting middle. S – satisfying end. 

IRS comes to mind every time I’m shaping a story on YouTube. If you go into the rabbit hole of learning how to create videos that resonate with audiences, the number one thing you will find in your research is that the hook — Intriguing beginning — is the most important part.

People will spend 70% of the creative effort on the first 60 seconds of the film, because if you don’t watch or listen for the first minute, then you’re not going to watch the rest of the minutes.  It’s just as simple as that on YouTube. So the hook is really important on YouTube. 

The intriguing beginning is something Esther hammers into us CSF students. And it’s just easy for me to remember. What she’s really done with CSF is, she’s given a name to what I’ve been doing intuitively. It’s helped me label and sharpen parts of my storytelling. And it’s honestly  given me a language to give my storytelling more clarity.

A still from Anthony’s film “a reminder to embrace change.”

Leadership Story Lab: So do you now use the IRS framework when working with our clients to help them create their YouTube content?

Anthony: Yes. I was just working with somebody two days ago. They were working on a promotional film for Sony cameras. He was doing some voiceover script and he wanted to run the script by me.

The part that I worked on with him the most is the intriguing beginning. Reminding him to make it as alluring as possible.

That’s where we spent most of our time. I usually help people with the beginning. It’s hard to know  if the beginning is as powerful as you hope it to be, especially if you’ve worked on it for such a long time by yourself.

In this video, for example, that Anthony and Esther worked on together, they hook viewers by setting up a contrast. People think storytelling is dramatic and complicated, but Esther lets us in on a secret: “It doesn’t have to be that complex.” There’s a three part formula anyone can learn! 

In working with Anthony on her videos, Esther learned IRS applies to YouTube too, but the Intriguing beginning is turbo-charged.

I often soundboard with someone and to see if it’s getting the effect that they want? IRS has definitely given me and the people I work with a lot of clarity.

Once they understand how important the beginning is, it’s really easy to get to the satisfying end. And then the middle part is the fun part, filling in the blanks and the gaps. It’s just so simply brilliant that I couldn’t put it any other way.

Leadership Story Lab:  Beyond the IRS framework, were their other long-lasting impacts from CSF?

Anthony:  Up until my four weeks in CSF with Esther, I thought I was a pretty solid question asker. I thought I was good at distilling things from people, getting value, getting them to open, But in the second or third session, Esther said, Anthony, you keep asking close-ended questions. I asked, What are you talking about?

She’s like, you always ask questions where you give people an option A or B or C. 

You’re limiting what people can bring to the table. I’ve always wanted people to feel safe. I always give them an answer to hold on to. Is your favorite food pizza or is it soup?

It’s like they can’t bring their own answer. I’ve always wanted people to have some source of safety when they’re with me. But in a group facilitation context, it’s actually limiting and cuts off one of my arms, because it doesn’t allow for the conversation to expand the way it should.

Esther framed it well. She’s said, there’s a time and place for that. Like when you want to guide someone with questions. But if you’re just trying to get information on the table and possibly get new information, that’s not the way to do it.

It was eye-opening because I walked in and I was very excited to learn, but I didn’t expect to walk out with as much as I did.

Leadership Story Lab: It’s clear that you were a storyteller before you participated in our storytelling training. 

Anthony: My life is a perfect example of what Esther set out to do with the words in the title of her book, “Let The Story Do The Work.” Storytelling has always been a part of me. It’s the way I’ve been able to find pretty grand opportunities and be afforded a life of travel and doing some insane projects. I’ve always relied on my storytelling skills.

I don’t solicit for work. The only thing I’ve ever—done is storytelling. I just didn’t realize until many years later that it was always my storytelling that left an impression with someone, the right person. We had some type of interaction where I was able to tell my stories and extract stories out of them. I was always remembered for projects, and almost a decade later, I’ve been able to work on projects that I’m very passionate about. 

Leadership Story Lab: So storytelling has always been a significant part of your life and who you are. Why did you decide to do CSF? 

Anthony: I just thrive in one-on-one settings. What I didn’t prioritize was learning the skill of group storytelling or facilitating. And it wasn’t until I stepped into Esther’s world and learned more about what she does that I realized, “Oh, this is actually something people work at. This is a thing that people care about.”

I’ve never had a traditional job. I’ve never had to host a meeting or lead a presentation. So I never saw the need for it. But once I understood the skill that she teaches and how it’s paired with storytelling, I thought it sounded like the ultimate combination. 

Leadership Story Lab: Is there anything else you’d like to share about your experience in our storytelling training program? 

Anthony: I’ve recently started doing storytelling consulting myself. It was something that’s always been in front of me, but I never felt like I was suited for it. Esther gave me confidence to move forward with it. Before I never felt equipped to help people work on their storytelling, their story brand, their story-anything.

But now I’ve started working with clients one-on-one, and it’s been going amazing. I’m trying to be very careful with the questions I ask because I want to extract the right kinds of words, emotions and information from them.

These sessions have been going very well because I take a second before the words leave my mouth to think, is this the right type of question to ask?

A lot of what I learned through CSF goes into my daily conversation. I’m in a position to be meeting a lot of people, so I get to apply the skills that I’ve learned from Esther and CSF quite often in everyday life.

Leadership Story Lab: Can you talk more about how Esther gave you the confidence to move forward with story consulting?

Anthony: It breaks into two parts: the confidence Esther has given me and the confidence that CSF has given me. I don’t know which one came first, but they have different impacts.

Esther has always believed in my instincts, especially after working with her in Hawaii. We got to really understand each other in person. She pushed me towards doing it more, focusing more on teaching.

I’ve never seen myself as a teacher. I’ve just been this lone wolf guy out in the world for so long. I asked her if she would help me in some capacity if I were to go down this road of consulting, coaching or mentoring people.

She said, “Yes, I would love to, but you should really know. You have everything you already need to do this. You’re not going to get anything from me that you don’t know inside of you.”

While that’s nice of her to say, it was an eye-opening moment. Whether it’s true or not, it’s not the point. She’s telling me I don’t have to doubt myself so much. Basically she’s unraveling my imposter syndrome. So that confidence from Esther was one thing

But the CSF gave me a whole other thing. I came in as a filmmaker and I left confident enough to teach people. CSF equips you and gives you language and tools to structure the way you teach storytelling. How to pass the talking stick over to other people and to ask a question.

Leadership Story Lab:  In your field of work, have you taken professional development or storytelling training courses? 

Anthony: I’m always trying to learn something relevant to my career, skills or passions. I’m a pretty obsessive learner. I don’t think there’s anything out there that would have brought me the value of what I learned in CSF. It’s just so immersive and so human-based. You couldn’t just watch a video or read something. You can only learn it by riding that bicycle.

I’ve traveled for many years. I haven’t put the word “community” at the center of my life.

If I can now say I am a part of a storytelling community now that I’ve finished CSF, it feels like an honor. I’m here because of Esther’s graciousness. I just love learning and I love being around people who value storytelling the same way I do. It’s just a beautiful thing.

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