Storyworthy
The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, value, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come - Steve Jobs.
A captivating and memorable story can move your audience. If done well, it is an effective tool to deliver a fundamental concept or a message to build trust and personal connection. As emotional beings, people long for profound, passionate encounters. Like most ideas I present in this blog, it is a super skill to move people deeply. A super skill that can be learned.
This book sums up the lessons learned from an experienced storyteller. Do visit Mathew's youtube channel: "Storyworthy the book," to see how good his stories are.
Stories are important. (By stories, we are strictly referring to authentic personal experiences - strictly non-fictional). They help you connect; they help you influence your audience; they help you drive a point home; they sometimes help you make a sale. But mostly, we tell stories to make people move.
Finding Your Story
Everyone has stories (some of you may think you didn’t live a storyworthy life - but trust me you did); you just need to learn how to collect them and deliver them. Some essential tips to finding your story -
Change: the protagonist (you) must go through a transformation. A 5-second moment of transformation when you made a discovery, felt something profound, learned something about yourself or someone. Without this change, your story is just an anecdote. The transformation does not have to be monumental. It can be infinitesimal in scale. A series of remarkable events does not make up a moving story. (that rules out vacation stories, travelogues and stories from a day or night out)
It would help if you told your own story for it to connect with the audience. However, if you were telling someone else's story, tell it from your perspective.
It must pass the dinner table test. Do not have overly enacted theatrics or dialogues. It must seem like you are improvising the story. Be prepared, with a beginning, an ending, and the scenes. The audience wants to be told a story, not see it performed.
Collecting Stories (Homework for Life - a life-changing habit to pick up): Take five minutes at the end of your day and capture a moment that meets the above criteria. You will start appreciating the value of transformational moments in your day. You will also have a collection of moments that can develop into a 5 minutes story that may help you deliver a message effectively in the future.
Keep your stream of generating ideas and archiving moments for retrieval later, with three simple rules:
First, it would be best if you did not get attached to any one idea.
Second, don't judge any idea that comes to your mind, even if they seem stupid.
Lastly, don't let the pen stop moving. Write something, anything. Start listing your favorite soccer players if you have to. Set a timer for 10 minutes and go.
Crafting Your Story
1. Choose your 5-second transformational moment:
The clarity of the 5 second moment is the bedrock of storytelling. A moment you made a realization; a change in perspective; a discovery about something or someone; a moment of regret: disappointment; life-altering decision; monumental failure; or despair in guilt.
The purpose of the rest of the story is to make this moment clear. So the story must end with this moment or very close to this moment.
2. Find your beginning
The beginning should be at the exact opposite side of your ending. This is the hard part, as usually, you have a multitude of choices and instances to choose from. It should also be close (in time) to the end so that the listener can keep track effortlessly. Keep it simple and strip out details that do not serve the purpose of accentuating the 5 second moment.
Brevity is the soul of wit. Make it short.
Consider the following while you chose the beginning:
It should be physically moving forward to start with momentum.
Don't start by setting expectations - don't declare that this is the most hilarious/sad/tragic/ story you will ever hear.
3. Keep it compelling
Give a reason for the audience to keep listening. What is at stake? Give them something to wonder, something they will want to know and only see if they continue to listen. There are five strategies that the author explains and demonstrates in the book.
a. The Elephant
It is a clear statement of the big problem. "I was little, and I wanted to help my brother," "I was jobless and had to find a place to live. " The listener then wonders how is this helpless kid going to help his brother? How is he going to find a place to live?
b. Backpacks
Backpacks are the buildups to a much-anticipated turning point in the story. You explain the plan to help your brother. Or how you will find a home to stay. You explain why that plan can be challenging so the audience can experience the same emotion you felt when you were living in that moment. But then, nothing ever goes per the plan. You are taking the audience through a rollercoaster of anticipation, and then they are dropped off the cliff.
c. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are hints to the future for your strategy to recover from your failed plan. You only reveal enough for the audience to keep wondering. Like "then I remembered an old friend who lived across the town on his own." There is a possibility that the old friend could help. But the audience are not sure that he will help.
d. Hourglasses
Slow down as you approach the most anticipated line of the story. Bring the story to a grinding halt. Add details of the front door, the doorbell, and the radio in the background. Let the listener hang. Those few seconds will feel like an hour. This is the emotional ride they have been longing for. Summarize events preceding the scene again if you have to. It may be redundant, but it helps you slow down. This is what the audience has to go through to listen to the punch line. The line that will make the audience groan or laugh.
4. Crystal Balls
Crystal balls are plausible predictions that you state but may not happen. Like "I ring the doorbell twice, and nobody answers. What was I thinking? It is the middle of the day; why would he be at home in the middle of the day. He must be at work. As I am just about to turn around and leave, I ring the bell one last time, and suddenly I hear a voice yelling - 'Who is it? ".
5. Humour
Humour does not help with stakes in a story. But it helps grab audiences' attention to get through not-so-exciting parts of the story. It also puts you in charge. You make them laugh at the outset; in the opening, you are in control. Humour alone will not work, though. It would be best if you still had stakes for the story to be emotionally moving.
6. Cinema in the mind of an audience
Identify a location for every scene in your story. This helps the audience picture a context and follow through with your story like it’s a movie. When you add details to a story, give it a location. Then, present the detail as a sub-story of when and where you first learned about that specific detail.
7. “But and Therefore” instead of “and.”
Connect your story using “but"s and "therefore”s rather than “and”s. Present your points as zig in a zag, while joining them with “but”, “so”, “therefore” or “instead” instead of just making statements bound by "and." connector. It’s the unbroken causation chain that makes up a story.
An example :
It was the middle of a hot mid-summer afternoon, so we decided to go out for ice cream.
8. Power of the negative.
When you state elements of your story as a negative of what could have been, the audience shares the wish you have! E.g., I’m not smart, not popular, and I didn’t have a penny to my name. So now they wish you were smart and popular.
Instead of "I’m dumb, and I’m poor." Choose a binary statement instead of singular declarations.
9. Surprise
Surprise can invoke an emotional response. Create anticipation, contrast, and then upend it with a surprise. For example, describe how calm the weather was 10 minutes before the disastrous hurricane was about to make landfall.
Telling Your Story
As long as you keep talking, all is well. Be prepared to talk. Acknowledge that you will be nervous no matter how good a storyteller you are or how well you have prepared. The audience, in fact, loves it when you are jittery at the beginning. It's endearing. It helps them connect with you. Remember the first few sentences (start strong), the scenes (remember locations - 5 to 7), and a few closing sentences (to finish strong). Find your bearing through your scene anchor points and let it flow. If you remember the location, you will remember what happened there. You may miss a line or two, but that's okay.
Make eye contact where you can. Choose points in your audience that span the entire crowd and cycle through them.
Key Points:
Use the present tense. It creates a sense of urgency.
However, some things are best said in the past tense. Like a backstory can be in the past tense—switch back and forth.
It is better to tell it in the past tense rather than telling it in the present tense poorly.
“There is nothing wrong with sharing your success stories, but they are complex stories to tell well. The truth is this: failure is more engaging than success."
“The story of an F is almost always better than the story of an A+."
Additional suggestions:
Do not ask rhetorical questions
Don't address the audience. don't acknowledge them.
No probs.
Don't mention anachronism and the sentence story
Downplay your physical presence.
No profanity, and don’t swear.
Don’t talk about the weather.
Being able to tell a story effectively is a superpower. I'm convinced, having sat through speakers who do this and instantly connects with their audience. You can make people feel better! So read the book to start capturing your story-worthy moments, crafting them, and presenting them in your conversations. You get to relive, cherish and share those story-worthy moments of your life. Life suddenly becomes full when you look back and recollect.
Thank you, Mathew!
