John Bennardo on Eleven Two-Dollar Bills | Storytelling for Real Life

John Bennardo had eleven two-dollar bills sitting in a checkbook box in a drawer. He decided to make a documentary about them. Two years and dozens of interviews later, the film wasn't really about currency at all, it was about memory, luck, and the strange specific things that connect total strangers. John is a filmmaker, author, and self-described fan of the absurd. He's also a cancer survivor who learned as a teenager that humor was the only way through a hospital bed and an eleven-hour surgery, and a guy who treats every wild idea, a poker-table sketch show, a satirical novel about cancel culture, a puzzle app that never made a dime, as another chapter in the same book instead of a separate career. Doug and John talk about noticing the small stuff nobody else sees, why "I don't have time" is never really the reason not to start something, and what it means to leave a library behind instead of a resume. Connect with John: Website: https://johnbennardo.com Documentary: https://2dollarbillmovie.com Documentary YouTube:    / thetwodollarbilldocumentary   Poker Studs Comedy: https://pokerstudscomedy.com Storytelling for Real Life with Doug Thompson. Conversations, lessons, and story strategies for work, life, and everything in between. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0xHMEpp... The book: Sell-By-Story: Turn Technical Complexity Into Stories That Connect Keynotes and workshops: speaker@thedougthompson.com More: https://thedougthompson.com LinkedIn:   / thedougthompson   0:00 Welcome to John Bennardo 0:34 The two-dollar bill in the drawer 3:16 How the documentary began 5:13 The Kickstarter and the stories that came out of the woodwork 9:00 Why finishing mattered more than fear 10:50 Chapters, not a career 13:26 Finding the absurd in the truth 15:55 A cancer diagnosis at sixteen 17:52 Humor as survival 21:20 The idea graveyard 23:45 Every reason to say no, and why you shouldn't 25:56 The story he's telling his whole life 30:15 Where to find John's work